DONATTE 
BY 


Accessio 


^     1:f^M^ 


JAM  9.A1Q91 


BR    125    .S37    1873 

Seelye,  Julius  Hawley,  1824 

1895. 
The  way,  the  truth,  and  the 

life 


^v> 


THE   WAY,    THE    TRUTH, 
AND  THE  LIFE. 

LECTURES    TO    EDUCATED    HINDUS, 

DELIVERED   ON   HIS   LATE  VISIT  TO   INDIA, 


BY 

REV.  JULIUS    H.  SEELYE, 

Professor  in  Amherst  College. 


x^:rr^F 


BOSTON: 

CONGREGATIONAL    PUBLISHING    SOCIETY, 

Congregational    House, 

beacon  street. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1873,  by 

The  Congregational  Publication  Society, 
In  the  OflSce  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


C  J.  PETERS  &  SON, 

STEREOTYPERS  AND  ELECTROTYPERS, 

S  WASHINGTON  ST.,  BOSTON. 


INTKODUCTOEY  NOTE. 


These  lectures  are  a  part  of  those  given  before 
educated  Hindus,  by  Prof.  Seelye,  on  his  recent  visit 
to  India.  The  four  here  published  were  written 
out,  and  issued  from  the  press  in  Bombay,  at  the 
earnest  request  of  native  gentlemen,  one  of  whom, 
an  eminent  Brahmin  scholar,  offered  to  bear  the 
expense  of  publication.  It  was  a  matter  of  regret 
that  the  author's  brief  stay,  and  the  multiplicity  of 
his  engagements,  —  lecturing,  holding  personal  con- 
ferences with  inquirers,  answering  letters  received 
from  others,  —  allowed  him  time  to  write  out  only 
these ;  but  they  will  suffice  to  show  the  spirit  and 
general  character  of  all. 

The  interest  with  which  they  were  received,  the 
large  and  constantly-increasing  audiences  of  the 
higher  classes,  —  educated  Brahmins,  Parsees,  and 
others,  —  that  listened  to  them,  were  not  more  a 
tribute  to  the  lecturer  than  an  illustration  of  the 
power  of  the  truths  he  presented  over  their  minds 


18067 


4  INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 

and  hearts.  The  interest  was  eminently  suggestive  in 
its  relations  to  the  future  religious  history  of  India, 
and  was  quite  beyond  the  hopes  of  those  who  had  en- 
couraged the  enterprise.  The  attempt  to  reach  a  class 
hitherto  almost  wholly  neglected,  with  all  their  native 
prejudices  against  the  gospel  only  intensified  by  a 
high  intellectual  training  from  which  all  proper 
Christian  influence  had  for  the  most  part  been  rigidly 
excluded,  was  indeed  an  experiment,  but  one  that, 
whatever  might  be  the  issue,  was  eminently  fit  to  be 
made,  —  one  worthy  the  Christian  scholar  and  philan- 
thropist, and  one  which  a  missionary  body  like  the 
American  Board  might  well  encourage.  The  manner 
of  Prof.  Seelye's  visit  was  especially  favorable,  —  in 
no  formal  connection  with  any  missionary  organiza- 
tion, the  Christian  gentleman  travelling  at  his  own 
charges,  delaying  a  few  weeks  only  in  the  course  of 
his  journey  before  returning  to  his  professional  labors, 
and  staying  longer  than  his  personal  convenience 
permitted,  because  he  could  not  refuse  the  earnest  re- 
quests to  continue  his  lectures  as  long  as  possible,  — 
he  had  a  rare  vantage-ground,  which  he  knew  how  to 
turn  to  good  account.  Yet  the  secret  of  his  success 
lay  yet  more  in  the  fundamental  truths  of  the  gospel 
which  he  pressed  with  so  much  clearness  and  force 
upon  the  moral  nature  of  his  hearers,  commending 
himself  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of  God. 


mTEODUCTOEY  NOTE.  5 

The  attention  given  these  lectures  at  Bombay  and 
Poona,  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  oneness  of  the 
moral  sentiment  amid  the  most  diverse  races  of  men. 

They  are  reprinted,  and  given  to  the  American 
public^  not  simply  to  gratify  a  worthy  curiosity  on 
the  part  of  many  who  have  felt  an  interest  in  the 
success  of  Prof.  Seelye's  efforts,  but  as  an  earnest 
presentation  of  first  principles  in  morals  and  religion 
that  will  be  welcomed  b}^  thoughtful  men,  especially 
by  students  in  our  literary  institutions. 

Prof.  Seelye  found  in  circulation  among  English 
readers  in  India,  a  printed  lecture  of  his  on  miracles, 
originally  given  as  a  part  of  a  course  *  by  different 
gentlemen  in  Boston.  It  has  been  thought  wise  to 
publish  it  with  the  others,  that  the  volume  may  find 
a  larger  audience,  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  to  make 
his  visit  yet  more  effective  for  good.  The  subject- 
matter  of  the  lecture  thus  added,  and  the  discussion 
it  receives,  render  its  appearance  here  especially 
appropriate. 

N.  G.  Clark 
Congregational  House,  "> 
Boston,  Aug,  14,  1873.    ) 

*  Boston  Lectures,  1870. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  BOMBAY  EDITION, 


DuEiNG  the  present  season,  Prof.  Seelye,  visiting 
Bombay  on  a  journey  around  the  world,  was  invited 
to  remain,  and  give  some  religious  addresses  to  the 
educated  natives.  He  was  heard  attentively  by  large 
and  intelligent  audiences,  among  whom  a  strong 
desire  was  expressed  that  the  addresses  might  be 
published.  They  had  not,  however,  been  previously 
written ;  but  Prof.  Seelye  was  induced  to  prepare, 
according  to  his  recollection,  the  first  four,  which 
are  herewith  presented,  in  the  hope  that  they  may 
further  the  object  for  which  they  were  given. 

GEO.  BOWEN. 
Bombay,  February,  1873. 


I. 

THE  DESIEABLE  END  OF  lEOGRESS. 


Gentlemen,  —  All  the  chief  nations  of  the 
world  just  now  seem  passing  through  a  period 
of  extraordinary  changes.  In  my  own  land,  we 
have  lately  experienced  the  most  momentous 
movement  since  our  history  began.  You  are 
perhaps  familiar  with  its  outlines.  A  struggle 
of  opinion  respecting  human  slavery  grew  into 
a  conflict  of  arms,  terribly  vast,  which  has  ended 
both  in  the  overthrow  of  slavery  and  in  its  per- 
petual prohibition.  Passing  westward,  we  find 
unprecedented  changes  taking  place  in  Japan. 
It  is  scarcely  ten  yeai's  since  the  first  Japanese 
student  came,  for  an  education,  to  the  United 
States ;  but  such  was  the  opposition  then  to  any 
intercourse  with  the  outside  world,  that  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  his  country  by  stealth,  and 
would  have  lost  his  head  had  he  been  discovered. 
Japan  was  then  a  feudal  State,  without  a  code 
of  laws,  having  an  arbitrary  despot  at  its  head, 


10  LECTURE  I. 

and  a  host  of  petty  princes  owing  him  subjection, 
but  wielding  also  a  tyrannical  power  over  their 
own  territories  and  retainers.  Within  ten  years 
this  has  all  been  changed.  Japan  has  now  a 
constitutional  monarch,  with  an  official  cabinet 
and  parliament;  and  the  feudal  princes  have 
yielded  up  their  rank,  while  nine-tenths  of  their 
former  revenue  goes  to  the  support  of  the  new 
order  of  things.  Two  hundred  Japanese  stu- 
dents, sent  and  supported  by  the  government 
itself,  are  now  pursuing  their  education  in  the 
United  States ;  while  others  also,  under  the  same 
auspices,  are  in  England  and  the  Continental 
States  of  Europe.  China,  though  holding  fast 
her  traditional  dislike  : —  a  mingled  hatred  and 
contempt  —  of  foreigners  and  their  ways,  finds 
it  impossible  to  preserve  her  isolation ;  and  the 
Chinese  government  has  the  present  year  sent 
to  the  United  States  thirty  young  men,  to  pur- 
sue there  a  course  of  study  for  a  term'  of  fifteen 
years,  and  has  also  decreed  that  a  similar  num- 
ber, for  a  similar  course,  should  follow  them 
during  each  of  the  next  ensuing  four  years. 
You  know  the  changes,  and  their  vast  signifi- 
cance, which  have  recently  occurred,  and  are 
still  transpiring,  in  European  nations;  ivhile  in 
India  it  requires  no  close  observer  to  discover 
underlying   tendencies   of    thought   and   action 


THE  DESIRABLE  END  OF  PEOGEESS.  11 

indicative  of  momentous  movements  among 
yourselves. 

Looking  over  the  whole  field,  and  bringing 
the  nations  into  one  view,  it  would  be  interest- 
ing to  inquire  whether  all  these  currents,  com- 
prehensively examined,  can  be  seen  to  set  in 
any  one  direction,  which  might  indicate  the 
actual  goal  of  human  progress.  But  there  is 
another  inquiry,  preliminary  to  that :  What  is 
the  most  desirable  goal  ?  What  sort  of  prog- 
ress for  mankind  will  be  sought  by  the  wisest 
well-wisher  of  his  race  ? 

To  this  question  various  answers  can  be  given, 
only  one  of  which  can  be  true.  Advancement 
in  what  may  be  termed  the  material  arts  of 
civilization  is  sometimes  claimed  to  be  the  most 
desirable  sort  of  progress.  Let  man  subdue 
nature,  it  is  said.  Let  there  be  a  great  increase 
of  railroads  and  telegraph  lines,  and  useful  in- 
ventions 5f  all  sorts.  Multiply  manufactures, 
and  increase  commerce,  and  let  the  means  of 
sitisfying  human  wants  grow  as  the  wants  them- 
selves enlarge  :  thus  you  will  strengthen  men's 
sense  of  dependence  upon  each  other,  wars  will 
cease,  nations  will  be  bound  together  in  a 
brotherhood  of  common  interest,  and,  in  this  ad- 
vancing growth,  the  highest  advance  of  civiliza- 
tion is  to  be  reached.     Thus  y(e  often  hear, 


12  LECTURE  T. 

But  tberc  are  two  difficulties  with  all  this, 
which  we  may  not  wisely  ignore.  The  first  is, 
that  these  arts  of  material  progress  have  no 
power  of  reproduction.  They  cannot  perpetu- 
ate themselves.  There  are  instances  innumera- 
ble where  these  arts,  with  no  power  other  than 
their  own  to  sustain  them,  have  been  left  to  die 
and  disappear.  Where  are  the  arts  which  built 
the  Great  Pyramid,  apparently  the  oldest  mon- 
ument of  human  workmanship  now  existing? 
The  Astronomer  Royal  of  Scotland,  who  has  spent 
months  in  its  careful  measurements  and  study, 
aided  by  the  best  mstruments  which  London 
and  Paris  and  Vienna  could  supply,  declares 
that  the  builders  of  this  structure  must  have 
had  instruments  exceeding  in  accuracy  his  own. 
You  have  perhaps  seen  statements  of  recent  re- 
searches in  your  neighboring  kingdom  of  Cam- 
bodia, where  ruins  of  extensive  dwellings  of 
elaborate  workmanshi23  appear,  built  long  ago 
by  the  ancestors  of  men  who  now  live  in  the 
tops  of  trees,  to  escape  from  tigers.  The  exqui- 
site bronzes  and  lacquer-work  made  in  earlier 
times  in  Japan,  the  Japanese  cannot  now 
equal;  while  the  beautiful  colors  which  the 
Chinese  formerly  exhibited  in  their  porcelains, 
and .  the  bronzes  inlaid  with  silver  which  they 
formerly  wrought  so  perfectly,  they  cannot  now 


THE  DESIRABLE  END  OF  PEOGRESS.  13 

produce.  In  the  ruins  of  Philse  and  Karnak 
and  ancient  Thebes,  in  Nineveh  and  Balbec,  in 
Yucatan  and  Mexico,  are  evidences  abundant  of 
arts  once  possessed,  but  long  since  lost,  because 
their  possessors  had  nothing  but  the  arts  them- 
selves with  which  to  preserve  them.  It  is  a 
great  mistake,  based  upon  a  very  superficial 
philosophy,  and  resting  on  a  science  falsely  so 
called,  which  supposes  that  there  naturally 
exists  in  human  society  an  inherent  power  of 
progress,  capable,  through  its  own  evolution, 
of  perpetual  growth.  The  deepest  principles  of 
human  nature,  and  all  the  facts  of  history, 
declare  exactly  the  reverse.  We  pride  our- 
selves upon  our  useful  arts,  u-pon  the  triumphs 
of  the  industry  and  invention  of  the  present 
time,  and  there  are  enough  who  fancy  these  to 
be  the  all-suf&cient  good;  but,  if  we  seek  to 
perpetuate  these  by  their  own  power  alone,  can 
any  one  tell  why  they  should  not  ultimately  dis- 
appear and  perish,  as  has  been  done  in  so  many 
instances  before?  We  do  not  avoid  the  force 
of  this  by  saying,  that,  if  some  arts  disappear, 
others  arise  whose  sum  equals  or  exceeds  in 
value  those  lost;  for  why  do  they  arise?  Out 
of  what  source  does  the  impulse  to  all  this  ad- 
vancement actually  spring?  Our  material  warns 
do  not   give   birth   to   our   material   progress , 


14  LECTURE  I. 

rather  does  the  progress  itself  evoke  and  en- 
haro:e,  and  first  make  us  conscious  of  oar  wants. 
The  luxuries  of  one  age  have  been  called  the 
necessities  of  another.  It  is  not  the  wants  of  the 
savage — his  need  of  food  and  shelter — which 
start  him  on  the  track  of  civilization ;  for  we  find 
these  wants  among  vast  multitudes  of  men 
without  the  faintest  gleam  of  progress.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  we  always  find  that  it  is  some 
spiritual  impulse  which  impels  men  in  their  ma- 
terial progress ;  and,  unless  this  impulse  is  fur- 
nished and  kept  alive,  neither  can  arts  be  pre- 
served, nor,  if  lost,  can  they  be  restored. 

The  other  difficulty  is  thus  indicated.  This 
material  advancement  can  in  no  respect  create 
that  spiritual  impulse,  of  which  it  is  altogether 
the  creature.  The  mental  progress,  of  which  it 
is  the  sign  and  fruit,  finds  in  it  no  sufficient 
stimulus  nor  food,  and,  with  nothing  else  to 
support  it,  becomes  exhausted.  Moreover,  as 
all  experience  shows,  the  union  of  men  in  mate- 
rial interest  is  helpless  in  securing  their  true 
or  lasting  fellowship.  The  so-called  arts  of 
peace  have,  by  themselves,  no  power  of  averting 
war.  The  history  of  the  last  ten  years  in  Eu- 
rope and  America  shows  that  the  closest  ties  of 
blood  and  common  interest  offer  no  restraint  to 
people  whom  other  influences  set  on  strife.     A 


THE  DESIRABLE  END  OF  PROGEESS.       .      15 

few  years  ago  it  was  said  in  tlie  United  States 
that  no  conflict  of  arms  between  the  North  and 
South  need  be  apprehended,  because,  besides 
our  kinship,  there  were  our  railroads  and  tele- 
graphs and  postal  communications,  and  the 
myriad  interdependences  of  trade,  to  bind  us 
indissolubly  together ;  but,  when  the  thoughts 
and  sentiments  of  the  two  sections  became  irrec- 
oncilable, all  these  material  bonds  were  but  as 
the  seven  green  withs  upon  the  strong  man, 
which  he  brake  with  his  strength,  "even  as  a 
thread  of  tow  is  broken  when  it  toucheth  the 
fire."  Bands  of  steel  are  fragile  as  threads  of 
gossamer  in  the  presence  of  ideas,  and  under 
the  power  of  spiritual  principles.  The  desir- 
able goal  of  civilization,  therefore,  cannot  be 
reached  by  any  material  progress. 

Shall  we  seek  it,  then,  in  something  intellec- 
tual ?  Will  education  furnish  us  the  true  good  ? 
There  are  men  enough  who  ask  if  ignorance  be 
not  the  source  of  all  our  trouble,  for  which 
knowledge  is  the  only  and  all-sufficient  relief 
Educate  men  therefore  !  Open  the  gateways  of 
science,  and  bid  the  human  race  ascend  on  the 
broad  paths  of  knowledge  to  its  high  goal !  Of 
course,  nothing  need  be  said  against  education, 
in  itself  considered ;  only  ignorance  despises 
knowledge:    but,   when  we   set   before   us   for 


16  LECTURE  T. 

attainment  the  true  and  highest  good  for  men, 
there  are  certain  difficulties  in  our  way,  which 
no  amount  of  knowledge  or  of  culture  can 
possibly  remove.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  fact, 
shown  by  manifold  illustrations,  that  culture  has 
no  more  power  to  perpetuate  itself  than  has  the 
material  progress  we  have  just  considered. 
History  is  full  of  instances  where  sciences  and 
arts  and  literatures  and  civilizations  have  de- 
clined. But,  besides  this,  growth  in  knowledge, 
or  culture  of  the  intellect,  cannot  be  man's 
highest  good ;  for,  since  this  can  only  be  secured 
in  the  highest  degree  by  the  most  exclusive  de- 
votion to  its  pursuit,  it  must,  from  the  nature  of 
the  case,  be  confined  to  a  few,  and  can  never  be 
enjoyed  by  the  great  mass  of  mankind.  The 
necessities  of  human  life  have  always  required, 
as  they  must  ever  do,  on  the  part  of  most  men, 
vastly  other  occupations  than  those  which  the 
cultivated  man  must  follow,  if  he  pursues  his 
culture,  while  the  true  good  should  be  one 
which  all  men  might  attain.  That  good,  which, 
from  its  nature,  can  only  be  given  to  a  small 
portion  of  the  race,  is  not  wisely  to  be  proposed 
as  the  most  desirable  end  of  human  progress. 

But  a  graver  difficulty  remains.  You  will  ac- 
knowledge that  there  is  no  satisfactory  condition 
of  human  life  without  virtue,  —  that  a  social  state 


THE   DESIRABLE  END  OF  PEOGRESS.  17 

lacking  in  integrity  and  purity  c  ould  be  .  no 
proper  model  for  imitation,  whatever  its  degree 
of  culture  or  material  progress.  No  good  can 
remain  untainted  in  the  midst  of  a  prevailing 
moral  defilement.  "No  nation,"  said  the  great 
historian  Niebuhr,  "  ever  died  except  by  sui- 
cide ; "  and  the  suicidal  poison  is  always  engen- 
dered by  the  nation's  moral  corruption.  Now, 
I  affirm,  and  if  you  will  note  closely  the  facts  in 
the  case  you  will  not  doubt  the  statement,  that 
culture  fails  in  the  highest  requirement  here ;  for 
it  is  powerless  to  secure  virtue,  or  to  interpose 
any  efficient  obstacle  against  vice.  I  might 
prove  this  from  the  universal  principles  of 
human  nature ;  but  this  is  unnecessary,  since  it  is 
declared,  with  such  startling  clearness,  by  the 
facts  of  history.  Conspicuous  examples  abound 
of  the  failure  of  culture  to  produce  any  moral 
improvement  of  men,  or  to  resist  the  destructive 
influence  of  a  corrupt  society.  Take  ancient 
Athens.  Perhaps  no  people  ever  attained  so 
refined  or  exalted  a  culture  as  the  Athenians 
possessed  during  the  time  of  Pericles,  —  a  cul- 
ture so  wide-reaching  that  even  the  common 
people  were  students  of  philosophy  and  accom- 
plished critics  of  art.  In  no  city,  surely,  of  the 
present  day,  would  an  artist  think  of  asking  or 
abiding  by  the  judgment  of  the  common  people 


18  LECTURE  I. 

upon  his  productions ;  but  this  was  a  matter  of 
every-daj  occurrence  at  Athens.  .  Not  only 
smiths,  tanners,  and  cobblers,  as  Xenophon  ex- 
presses it,  gathered  together  to  hear  the 
discussions  of  philosophers,  but  the  same  classes 
came  from  their  homes  and  their  workshops  to 
the  market-place,  and  pronounced  their  verdict 
upon  the  highest  works  of  art  ever  submitted  to 
any  age ;  and  their  verdict  has  been  respected  by 
every  age.  But  all  this  surprising  culture,  un- 
paralleled in  its  perfection,  left  the  soul  of  the 
people  dead.  It  showed  not  the  slightest  power 
to  purify.  It  brought  forth  no  virtue,  and 
checked  no  vice.  The  evidence  of  Athenian 
corruption  in  the  most  blooming  period  of  Athe- 
nian culture  is  overwhelming  and  appalling.  A 
strong  argument  might  be  constructed  to  show 
that  this  enlightened  centre  of  art  and  philoso- 
phy was  the  most  corrupt  city  of  its  time.  In 
one  of  Plato's  dialogues,  an  intimate  friend  and 
pupil  of  Socrates  extols  his  master  in  a  eulo- 
gium  which  has  been  even  called  an  apotheosis, 
wherein  it  is  put  forth,  as  a  matter  equally  of 
wonder  and  of  admiration,  that  Socrates  alone, 
one  single  man  in  all  Athens,  was  not  guilty  of 
a  vice  too  revolting  to  be  named !  The  whole 
atmosphere  of  Athens  was  surcharged  with  a 
moral  pestilence,  whose  ravages  were  most  dire, 


THE  DESIRABLE  END  OF  PSOGEESS.  19 

even  wlien  tlie  results  of  cultuie  were  the  most 
splendid.  The  culture,  unable  to  resist  the 
moral  corruption,  itself  yielded  and  fell  before 
it,  till  the  cradle  of  art  and  philosophy  became 
also  its  grave.  Such  a  fact  —  to  which  your 
own  familiarity,  gentlemen,  with  the  records  of 
history  will  suggest  copious  parallels  drawn  from 
individuals  and  communities  —  teaches  us,  that, 
unless  we  have  some  end  to  attain  higher  than 
culture,  and  some  instrument  more  potent  than 
culture  to  employ,  all  our  hopes  of  human  prog- 
ress and  of  the  highest  civilization  are  in  vain. 

Shall  we  seek,  then,  this  higher  end  and  more 
potent  instrument  in  virtue  itself?  Granted  that 
no  result  would  be  satisfactory  in  which  moral 
purity  does  not  reign,  shall  we  endeavor  to 
secure  this  purity  by  instructing  men  in  its  pre- 
cepts? Alas,  gentlemen,  if  you  closely  judge, 
either  from  human  nature  or  from  history,  you 
will  predict  the  inevitable  failure  of  all  such  at- 
tempts. Instruction  in  moral  precepts  gives  no 
inspiration  to  virtue,  as  facts  abundantly  show. 
We  are  liable  to  a  great  mistake  here,  —  a  mistake 
actually  made  by  many  men,  who,  from  a  false 
theory  of  human  nature,  draw  conclusions  which 
all  the  facts  of  human  conduct  deny.  It  is 
judged,  that,  because  men  ought  to  act  virtu- 
ously, they  would  do  so  If  they  could  only  see 


20  LBCTUEE  I 

tliis  duty  with  unmistakable  clearness ;  but  the 
simple  fact  is,  that  they  do  see  it,  and  have  always 
seen  it.  No  man  needs  to  be  told  that  he  ought 
to  do  right:  he  knows  it  without  any  telling ; 
and  oh,  how  feeble  are  all  the  instructions  of 
another,  in  comparison  with  the  strength  and  the 
majesty  of  that  undying  voice,  which,  in  every 
man's  soul,  has  been  proclaiming  his  duty  ever 
since  he  had  a  soul!  The  great  trouble  is,  that 
men  will  not  do  their  duty  when  it  is  known ; 
and  how  shall  any  increasing  instruction  reach 
or  remedy  this  ? 

Socrates  furnishes  a  conspicuous  example  of 
the  failure  of  this  method.  Of  all  the  world's 
great  ethical  teachers,  no  one  seems  to  have  had 
as  complete  a  conviction  as  he,  that  instruction 
in  virtue  is  sufficient  to  secure  virtue.  Virtue 
is  teachable,  was  his  famous  motto,  on  the  basis 
of  which  he  went  about  for  thirty  years, 
through  the  streets  and  workshops  of  Athens, 
illustrating  and  expounding  his  favorite  thenie, 
seeking  ever  to  make  men  virtuous  by  instruct- 
ing them  in  the  precepts  of  virtue.  Does  any 
one  doubt  the  matchless  skill  with  which  this 
great  master  inculcated  his  lessons  ?  Is  any  one 
likely  to  exaggerate  the  prodigious  intellectual 
results  of  his  teaching?  These  abide  still,  and 
are  certain  to  far  outlast  our  time ;  but  we  have 


THE  DESIRABLE  END  OF  PBOGEESS.  21 

no  evidence  of  the  slightest  moral  improvement 
resulting  from  all  the  efforts  of  Socrates.  Alci- 
biades,  one  of  his  most  intimate  and  attentive 
pupils  and  friends,  upon  whom  Socrates  exerted 
all  his  power  of  reformation,  remained  a  licen- 
tious and  hopeless  profligate;  and  it  does  not 
appear,  that,  in  any  instance,  this  master  of  spir- 
itual births,  as  he  termed  himself,  was  able  to 
bring  forth  one  virtuous  impulse  to  a  virtuous 
life.  In  all  this,  Socrates  only  illustrates  the  uni- 
versal law.  No  preaching  of  morality,  unat- 
tended by  any  other  influence,  has  ever  sunk 
deep  into  society,  or  spread  widely  in  the 
thoughts  and  actions  of  men.  It  has  never 
shown  any  power  to  mould  society  internally 
and  from  the  centre.  It  is  a  very  narrow  read- 
ing of  history,  and  a  very  shallow  acquaintance 
with  the  heart,  which  has  not  yet  taught  us  that 
something  other  than  knowledge  is  necessary  in 
order  to  virtue,  that  something  more  than  light 
is  needed  in  order  to  life. 

But  if  instruction  in  virtue  were  all-sufficient 
to  secure  virtuous  conduct,  yet  if  we  look  more 
profoundly  into  such  conduct,  good  and  desir- 
able as  it  is,  we  shall  not  find  it  the  highest 
object  of  a  wise  man's  desire.  For  this  concep- 
tion of  virtue  never  rises  higher  than  the  thought 
of   dutv  —  the    thought   of   something   which 


22  LECTUEE  I. 

Oil  gilt  to  be  done.  It  commands,  it  prohibits, 
and  we  fulfil  its  mandates  when  we  do  what  it 
bids  us  do.  But  there  is  a  great  difference  be- 
tween doing  righteously  and  being  righteous,  — 
between  obedience  to  a  law  and  the  inspiration 
of  a  life.  The  constraint  of  moral  precept  can, 
at  the  best,  only  mould  our  deeds:  it  cannot 
shape  our  inclinations,  nor  furnish  any  inner  and 
living  spring  to  moral  action.  You  may  teach 
a  blind  man  how  to  direct  his  steps,  and  by 
some  leading  string  he  may  follow  your  direc- 
tions perfectly ;  but  oh,  how  much  better  when 
he  has  his  own  eye,  and  walks  in  the  light  o'f 
his  own  clear  seeing!  You  may  make  a  marble 
statue,  faultless  in  its  beauty;  but  how  much 
better  that  breathing  creation  which  God  has 
made,  which  is  instinct  with  life,  and  which 
moves  as  its  free  spirit  guides  it!  And  thus, 
however  perfectly  you  may  regulate  your  con- 
duct by  the  constraint  of  duty,  it  is  a  far  higher 
and  nobler  life,  when  your  spirit  needs  no  exter- 
nal constraint  to  control  it,  but  chooses  truth 
and  righteousness  in  the  exercise  of  its  perfect 
liberty  and  because  of  its  perfect  love.  A  foun- 
tain of  purity  opened  in  the  depth  and  centre 
of  the  soul,  and  fed  exhaustlessly  with  the  spon- 
taneous impulse  of  life,  every  one  who  intelli- 
gently seeks,  either  his  own  good  or  the  highest 


THE  DESIRABLE  END  OF  PEOGEESS.  23 

welfare  of  society,  will  surely  desire ;  but  this 
perfect  life  is  inconceivable,  apart  from  a  divine 
quickening,  and  demands  a  religious  source  alike 
to  evoke  and  sustain  it.  Religion  has,  therefore, 
in  all  time  and  by  the  great  majority  of  men, 
been  felt  to  be  indispensable  to  the  highest 
good.  No  material  prosperity,  nor  culture,  nor 
virtue,  however  extended,  refined,  or  sure,  can 
adequately  bless  men. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  religion,  and  only  two. 
The  one  begins  with  man,  and  seeks,  by  human 
endeavors,  after  a  divine  fellowship.  It  has 
various  forms,  —  Paganism  in  all  its  branches, 
Mohammedanism,  besides  various  representatives 
in  nominal  Christian  lands ;  but  the  one  charac- 
teristic in  which  they  are  all  united  is  that  they 
seek  after  God  in  some  way  which  the  human  in- 
tellect has  been  able  to  devise,  and  by  some  prac- 
tices which  the  human  will  is  able  to  perform. 
The  God  whom  they  seek  may  be  called  the 
Absolute,  or  Infinite,  or  Allah,  or  Buddha,  or 
Brahm ;  he  may  be  dimly  apprehended,  or 
worshipped  as  altogether  unknown;  he  may 
dwell  in  some  high  heavens  above  us,  or,  as  we 
are  sometimes  told,  in  some  deep  heavens  with- 
in ;  but  whatsoever  he  may  be  called,  or  what- 
soever he  may  be,  the  human  soul,  perhaps  by 
penance,  perhaps  by  prayer,   perhaps  by  calm 


24  LECTUHE  I. 

and  rapt  contemplation,  seeks  if  haply  it  might 
feel  after  and  find  him.  In  this  point  Paganism 
and  Pantheism,  the  rudest  systems  of  untutored 
thought  and  the  refined  speculations  of  acute 
and  cultured  minds,  meet  and  agree.  The  spec- 
tacle which  these  religions  furnish  is  certainly 
most  impressive.  Whatever  we  may  say  of  the 
forms  in  which  the  religious  sentiment  has  been 
exhibited,  no  one  can  smile,  none  can  sneer,  at 
the  sentiment  itself 

But  what  have  all  these  efforts  of  man  to  find 
some  religion  accomplished?  Taking  them  all 
together,  they  have  never  furnished  any  death- 
less impulse  to  society  nor  any  undying  inspira- 
tion to  the  soul*  they  have  made  men  sometimes 
calm  with  a  stoical  indifference,  and  sometimes 
mute  with  a  hopeless  despair ;  but  they  have 
never  checked  nor  changed  the  tendency  of  the 
evil  they  were  designed  to  destroy,  while  the 
mysterious  instinct,  the  importunate  craving,  out 
of  which  the  religion  has  its  birth,  the  religion' 
itself  is  equally  unable  to  stifle  or  to  satisfy. 

I  said  there  are  two  kinds  of  religion,  and 
only  two.  The  one  begins  with  man,  and  seeks, 
by  human  endeavors,  after  God ;  the  other  be- 
gins with  God,  and,  by  a  way  wholly  divine, 
seeks  after  man.  In  this  is  the  peculiarity  of 
the  Christian,  in  distinction  from  all  other  sys- 


THE  DESIRABLE  END   OF  PROGRESS.  25 

terns  of  religion ;  and,  in  the  revelation  of  this 
doctrine,  is  the  distinction  of  the  Bible  from  all 
other  books. 

I  remember,  in  one  of  the  Hymns  of  the  Rig 
Veda,  a  single  expression  like  this:  "He  is 
merciful  even  to  him  that  committeth  sin." 
There  is  some  uncertainty  about  the  proper 
interpretation  of  the  passage  ;  but,  granting  that 
here  is  a  thought  which  sounds  like  the  charac- 
teristic doctrine  of  the  Christian  Scriptures,  I 
know  of  nothing  similar  to  it,  elsewhere,  in 
the  records  of  the  unchristian  world.  While  the 
thought  of  God's  justice  is  universal,  and  the 
idea  of  propitiation  is  everywhere  found,  only 
in  the  Bible  is  the  divine  justice  radiant  with 
love,  and  the  sacrifice,  on  whose  meritorious 
ground  rests  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  represent- 
ed as  altogether  the  work  of  God  himself 
But  this  doctrine,  which  the  Christian  system 
was  the  first  to  declare,  reigns  through  every 
portion  of  that  system.  The  salvation  which 
the  Christian  religion  announces  is  procured 
wholly  through  a  divine  work,  and  is  offered 
to  man,  not  in  the  least  because  his  obedience 
or  service  can  merit  it,  but  solely  through  the 
free  exercise  of  divine  mercy.  It  comes  to 
men,  first  of  all,  in  their  disobedience,  when 
ruined  by  sin,  and  offers  them  forgiveness  and 


26  LECTURE  I. 

life  as  a  free  gift.  The  Christian  Scriptures 
expressly  declare  that  "  God  commendeth  his 
love  to  us,  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners 
Christ  died  for  us ; "  that  Christ  came  ''  to  seek 
and  to  save  that  which  was  lost;  "  and  that,  ''  not 
by  works  of  righteousness  which  we  have  done, 
but  by  his  mercy  he  saved  us." 

Notice  now  the  living  inspiration  which  this 
truth  gives  to  men.  God's  love  to  man,  thus 
revealed,  begets  man's  love  to  God;  for  "  we  love 
him  because  he  first  loved  us;  "  and  man's  love 
to  God  kindles  man's  love  to  man,  "for  he  that 
loveth  God  will  love  his  brother  also."  This 
living  germ  is  capable  of  evolving  the  perfect 
life  for  the  individual,  and  the  perfect  social 
state.  All  the  requirements  of  individual  per- 
fection are  met  in  that  soul  where  every  duty 
and  every  moral  precept  are  revealed  as  the 
righteous  will  of  a  loving  Lord,  in  whoi^e  love 
the  soul  finds  its  life,  and  in  whose  service  it 
rejoices  in  the  liberty  of  the  perfect  love  which 
casteth  out  fear.  The  perfect  social  state  surely 
exists  when  society,  kindled  by  this  divine  in- 
spiration, becomes  knit  together  by  that  charity 
which  seeketh  not  her  own,  and  where  the  new 
life  of  love  and  purity  in  individual  hearts  works 
everywhere  in  peace  and  good- will.  These  bless- 
ings, which   no   other   religion    even   proposes, 


THE  DESIRABLE  END   OF  PROGEESS.  27 

and  whicli  surpass  the  ideal  dreams  of  poetry  or 
philosophy,  it  is  not  only  the  actual  aim  of 
Christianity  to  secure,  but  these  are  the  actual 
results  of  this  religion,  in  exactly  the  degree  in 
which  men  have  yielded  to  its  sway.  If  it  could 
only  be  everywhere  accepted,  if  all  men  were 
true  and  loyal  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ,  wars 
would  cease,  oppression  and  slavery  would  be 
no  more,  vice  and  crime  of  every  sort  would 
disappear;  there  would  be  purity  and  love  uni- 
versal aniong  men,  and  the  spiritual  life  which 
the  Christian  faith  enkindles  would  furnish  the 
unfailing  impulse  to  all  intellectual  growth  and 
all  industrial  activity.  Not  only  righteousness, 
but  knowledge,  should  then  flow  through  all  the 
earth,  while  the  wilderness  and  the  solitary  place 
should  be  glad  thereof,  and  the  desert  should 
rejoice  and  blossom  as  the  rose.  The  wise  man, 
therefore,  who  loves  his  race,  will  be  content 
with  nothing  less  than  the  effort  to  bring  all 
nations  and  every  heart  under  the  living  sway 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  his  word. 


II. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    EELIGION  WOETHY  OF   EXAM- 
INATION. 


Gentlemen,  —  It  is  related  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment that  Philip,  one  of  the  earliest  disciples 
of  Christ,  went  to  a  friend,  Nathanael  by  name, 
and  said,  "We  have  found  him  of  whom  Moses 
in  the  Law,  and  the  Prophets,  did  write,  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  the  son  of  Joseph."  Now,  both  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets  had  foretold  that  the 
Messiah  who  was  to  come  should  descend  from 
David,  and  be  born  at  Bethlehem.  Nathan- 
ael perfectly  understood  this,  and  therefore  put 
no  faith  in  Philip's  statement.  With  no  attempt 
to  explain  its  seeming  discrepancy  from  all  he 
had  been  taught  to  believe,  with  no  inquiry 
whether  Jesus  of  Nazareth  might  not  have  been 
born  at  Bethlehem,  and  the  reputed  son  of 
Joseph  be  of  the  real  lineage  of  David,  he  em- 
bodies his  sceptical  objections  in  the  scornful 
reply,  "  Can  there  aay  good  thing  come  out  of 


LECTTJEE  n.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION.       29 

Nazareth  ?  "  Philip  makes  no  reply  to  the  ob- 
jection by  way  of  formal  argument,  but  simply 
invites  Nathanael  to  come  and  see  for  himself 
His  words,  in  substance,  were,  This  is  all  true 
which  I  tell  you.  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  the  son 
of  Joseph,  is  the  Messiah  ;  and,  if  you  will  but 
come  and  see  him  as  I  have  done,  and  know 
him  as  I  do,  your  doubts  will  disappear,  and 
your  faith  will  be  as  firm  as  mine.  Nathanael 
consents.  He  goes.  He  finds  Jesus.  He  hears 
his  words.  He  becomes  acquainted  with  his 
character.  His  examination  satisfies  him,  and  he 
believes.  "Rabbi,"  he  exclaims,  "thou  art  the 
Son  of  God,  thou  art  the  King  of  Israel." 

I  refer  to  this  incident,  because  it  illustrates 
two  facts  often  found.  When  the  claims  of  the 
Christian  religion  are  presented,  they  may  seem 
to  contradict  some  preconceived  opinion,  and 
are  therefore  scornfully  set  aside.  One  who  has 
tested  these  claims  himself,  however,  and  knows 
their  power,  will  not  hesitate  to  challenge  any 
objector  to  come  and  see  for  himself  Christian- 
ity has  nothing  to  conceal  from  friend  or  foe. 

It  is  not  only  open  for  the  examination  of  the 
world,  but  it  challenges  the  closest  scrutiny, 
and  is  not  afraid  of  the  result.  Try  me,  it  says 
to  all  the.  opposing  thoughts  and  systems  of 
men.     Examine  my  claims  in  whatever   aspect 


30        LECTUKE  n.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

and  by  whatever  test  yon  pleavse ;  the  highest 
flights  of  human  thought,  the  profoundest  re- 
search, and  the  widest  range  of  inquiry,  shall 
find  me  higher,  broader,  l<^nd  deeper  than  they 
have  reached. 

This  claim  of  the  Christian  religion  for  exam- 
ination is  supported  by  considerations  so  numer- 
ous and  weighty,  that  I  beg  to  press  it  upon 
your  attention.  It  is  not  my  present  purpose  to 
enter  upon  any  formal  presentation  of  the  evi- 
dences of  Christianity,  but  only  to  refer  you  to 
some  of  the  more  obvious  and  most  indisputable 
grounds  upon  which  this  religion  claims  the 
thoughtful  scrutiny  of  the  world. 

1.  The  Christian  religion  is  a  fact  in  the 
world,  and  must  have  originated  in  some  way. 
And  now  there  is  the  clearest  certainty  that  it 
was  first  known  among  men  a  little  more  than 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  and  that  its  author 
was  an  individual  who  bore  the  name  of  Jesus. 
This  certainty  has  been  established  after  so 
searching  a  scrutiny,  and  in  the  face  of  so  strong 
an  opposition,  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  a  fact 
undisputed  and  indisputable.  But  more  than 
Ll  is  is  true.  The  general  points  in  the  narrative 
of  the  New  Testament  are  now  past  contradic- 
tion. One  would  not  add  to  his  reputation  for 
intelligence  who  should  doubt  or  deny  that  Soc- 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  81 

rates  tauglit  men  in  tlie  streets  of  Athens,  or 
that  Plato  held  his  profound  discussions  in  the 
Academy,  or  that  Aristotle  walked  to  and  fro 
amid  the  shady  groves  of  the  lyceum  discours- 
ing with  his  disciples.  Those  persons  who  are 
anxious  to  be  called  independent  thinkers  would 
be  called  very  independent  indeed  to  dispute 
such  points  as  these.  And  yet  none  of  these  are 
better  authenticated  than  the  general  facts  of 
the  gospel  history.  This  history  has  been  sub- 
jected to  a  criticism  of  unparalleled  rigor  and 
learning  ;  but  it  has  stood  the  searching  ordeal, 
and  has  come  forth  from  the  furnace  as  gold 
tried  in  the  fire.  By  far  the  ablest  work  which 
the  present  century  has  produced  against  the 
acceptation  in  which  the  New  Testament  is  com- 
monly held  by  Christians,  the  work  which  shows 
greater  learning,  and  more  philosophical  power, 
than  almost  any  other,  on  that  side  of  the  ques- 
tion,—  I  refer  of  course  to  Strauss's  "Life  of 
Jesus,"  — admits  that  the  large  basis  of  historical 
truth  in  the  Gospels  can  no  longer  be  denied. 
The  more  brilliant,  though  far  less  profound,  work 
of  Renan,  recently  attracting  an  attention  which 
it  has  already  lost,  re-affirms  this  admission  as 
positively  as  the  most  confident  believer  in 
Christianity  could  desire.  There  are  questions 
still  at  issue  respecting  particular  points  in  the 


32        LECTURE   n. — THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

gospel  narratives,  —  questions  which  advancing 
discussion  is  steadily  bringing  to  an  issue  more 
and  more  accordant  with  the  views  of  Christian 
believers ;  *  but  no  question  any  longer  exists 
respecting  their  general  truthfulness.  We  may 
take  it,  therefore,  as  a  fact  no  more  to  be  denied, 
that  Jesus  Christ  actually  lived  and  died,  in  all 
general  respects,  as  the  New  Testament  says  he 
did. 

Notice  some  of  these  facts.  He  belonged  to 
the  humblest  rank  in  society.  His  reputed 
father  was  a  carpenter.  His  mother  was  so 
poor  that  she  could  bring  to  the  temple  only  a 
pair  of  turtle-doves,  or  two  young  pigeons,  — 
the  gift  of  the  poorest  (Lev.  xii.  8,  Luke  ii.  24) 
as  her  offering  after  his  birth.  Till  he  was 
thirty  years  of  age,  Jesus  lived  with  his  parents, 
poor,  unnoticed,  unknown.  He  had  no  rich  and 
powerful  friends,  nor  any  external  means  of  in- 
fluence. No  patronage  was  shown  him,  no 
earthly  master  gave  him  instruction.  It  is  com 
paratively  easy  to  gain  favor  and  credence  for  a 
system,  where  the  rich,  the  learned,   the  noble 

*  The  strongest  objections  to  the  New  Testament  have  lately  been 
urged  to  its  miracles,  wliich  are  declared  to  be  impossible  on  scientific 
grounds ;  but  the  recent  remarkable  mathematical  demonstrations, 
which  Clausius  has  applied  to  the  mechanical  theory  of  heat,  prove 
not  only  the  entire  possibility  of  miracles,  on  scientific  grounds,  but 
their  absolute  necessity  to  account  for  the  present  condition  of  things. 


WOETHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  33 

support  it :  Christ  had  none  of  these  on  his 
side ;  but  they  were  all  leagued  against  him.  It 
was  no  impossible  thing  for  Mohammed  to  con- 
quer nations  with  the  sword;  but  Christ  com- 
menced his  mission,  and  finished  it,  preaching 
peace.  If  his  nation  had  been  expecting  the 
advent  of  such  a  person  as  he,  it  would  not  have 
been  difficult  to  impose  upon  such  expectations ; 
but  the  Jews  were  looking  for  the  coming  of  a 
very  different  Messiah ;  and  there  was  that  in  the 
appearance  of  Jesus  which  made  his  claims  to 
be  the  Anointed  of  God  the  greatest  absurdity 
in  their  eyes:  "  Can  there  any  good  thing  come 
out  of  Nazareth?  "  "  Is  not  this  the  carpenter's 
son  ?  "  And  yet,  with  every  thing  to  contend 
with,  and  nothing  to  help  him  but  himself,  and 
even  his  own  rank  and  condition  all  apparently 
against  him,  this  poor,  unlettered,  and  obscure 
individual,  at  thirty  years  of  age  calmly  pre- 
sented himself  to  his  nation  and  to  the  world  as 
their  divine  Teacher  and  Saviour  and  Lord. 
Never  before  or  since  has  any  other  man,  what- 
ever his  power,  uttered  such  pretensions.  The 
dreams  of  insanity  do  not  surpass  it;  but  the 
dignity  and  calmness  and  self-possession  of  Jesus 
are  as  unparalleled  as  his  claims.  His  whole  con- 
duct shows  that  he  knew  himself,  and  had  the 
clearest  consciousness  of  what  he  said  and  did. 


34        LECTDTIE  n. — THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

He  always  continued  poor.  He  never  sought 
wealth,  nor  applause,  nor  any  other  power  than 
his  own.  Without  even  a  place  which  he  could 
call  his  own,  where  he  could  lay  his  head,  de- 
spised and  rejected  by  the  ruling  classes,  finding 
his  companions  among  the  destitute  and  the  out- 
casts of  society,  he  spent  three  years,  teaching 
and  preaching  the  kingdom  of  God.  They 
were  years  of  bitter  toil  and  hardship  ;  but  he 
never  complained,  he  never  sought  his  own 
ease,  nor  excused  himself  from  any  work  for 
another's  good.  At  the  end  of  three  years  he 
was  put  to  an  ignominious  death ;  and  yet  this 
poor,  despised,  and  crucified  person  has  been 
loved  and  served  and  worshipped  ever  since, 
by  increasing  multitudes,  who,  somehow  or 
other,  have  come  to  feel  that  all  their  hopes  for 
this  life  and  the  life  to  come  centre  in  him. 
The  most  interesting  question,  in  the  most  en- 
lightened portion  of  the  world,  exerting  a  wider 
attention  and  more  earnest  thought  to-day  than 
any  other  theme,  relates  to  the  person  and  work 
of  one,  who,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  was 
ignominiously  put  to  death  as  a  malefactor. 
How  do  you  account  for  this  ?  It  is,  to  say  the 
least,  the  most  striking  phenomenon  in  history  : 
what  is  its  explanation?  Come  and  see.  A 
wise  man  will  not  rest  till  he  has  solved,  if  he 
can,  such  a  problem  as  this. 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMIIJ^ATIOIT.  35 

2.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, it  must  certainly  be  confessed,  that,  from  an 
origin  so  humble,  there  have  sprung  effects  in- 
calculably exalted.  The  crucifixion  of  Christ 
was  an  event  which  both  astonished  and  terrified 
the  few,  who,  during  his  life,  adhered  to  him. 
All  their  fondest  hopes  were  destroyed  by  his 
death.  Why  were  not  the  disciples  themselves 
disheartened  and  dispersed?  Doubtless  this  is 
what  every  one  beforehand  would  have  pre- 
dicted. The  disciples  were  a  little  band  of  rude 
and  illiterate  men.  They  were  destitute,  in  all 
respects,  of  what  the  world  calls  power.  They 
had  no  remarkable  gifts  of  reason  or  of  speech. 
They  could  wield  neither  the  pen,  the  purse,  nor 
the  sword.  Not  only  were  they  the  weakest 
instruments,  and  their  means  the  feeblest,  but 
the  work  of  preaching  the  new  religion  de- 
manded the  strongest  agencies  in  the  hands  of 
the  strongest  men.  If  they  were  to  go  forward 
and  preach  the  doctrine  of  their  Master,  from 
how  many  sources  might  they  not  expect  a  most 
bitter  opposition!  Every  government  and 
army,  every  school  of  learning,  the  literatures 
and  arts  of  the  world,  the  institutions  of  society, 
and  the  deep-seated  tendencies  of  the  soul, 
would  be  all  leagued  against  them.  What  could 
they  do?     What  did    they  do?     They  opened 


36        LECTURE  n.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

their  mouths  boldly,  and  ceased  not  to  teach  and 
to  preach  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ.  They  went 
everywhere,  declaring  that  this  Jesus,  who  was 
crucified,  is  the  Lord  and  Saviour  of  mankind. 
They  were  able  —  these  few  poor  and  illiterate 
followers  of  a  despised  and  crucified  Master 
were  able  —  to  convince  others  that  their  state- 
ments were  true.  The  Roman  Empn'c,  the 
mightiest  the  world  has  known,  made  every 
effort  to  suppress  the  new  fiiith,  but  the  faith 
grew  notwithstanding,  till  it  took  possession  of 
the  very  power  which  had  been  set  for  its  de- 
struction. How  could  this  be?  The  astonishing 
fact  demands  an  explanation. 

In  only  two  other  instances  do  we  know  the 
history  of  the  propagation  of  a  new  system  of 
religion;  but  the  problem  which  the  rise  and 
spread  of  Mohammedanism  or  of  Buddhism 
present  is  very  simple  in  comparison  with  that 
which  belongs  to  the  early  extension  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  triumphs  of  Mohammedanism 
were  gained,  as  you  well  know,  by  physical 
force.  The  ascendency  of  the  Koran,  in  every 
nation  which  accepted  it,  was  accomplished  by 
the  sword.  In  the  case  of  Buddhism,  the  aban- 
donment by  the  great  Shakya-Muni  of  his 
princely  rank  and  inheritance,  and  his  devotion 
to  a  life  of  poverty  and  asceticism,  was  a  most 


WOETHY  OF  EXAMINATIpy.  37 

impressive  spectacle ;  and  the  ^-igor  with  which, 
for  so  many  years,  he  preached  his  doctrine  of 
the  vanity  of  earthly  things,  could  not  fail  to 
draw  around  him  a  multitude  of  weary  and 
wretched  souls,  to  whom  relief  from  the  miseiy 
of  a  hopeless  existence  was  welcome  at  any 
price,  even  that  of  existence  itself  But  you 
are  acquainted  with  the  fact  that  Buddhism 
gained  no  strong  foothold,  and  maintained  only 
a  precarious  existence,  until,  two  hundred  years 
after  the  death  of  its  founder,  Chandragupta,  or 
Sandracottas  as  he  is  called  in  the  Western 
world,  gave  it  his  patronage,  thinking  that  he 
could  thus  strem^then  his  throne  asrainst  the 
hostile  influence  of  Brahminism ;  while  it  was 
only  through  the  power  of  Chandragupta's 
grandson,  Asoka,  who  conquered  so  large  a  por- 
tion of  India,  that  Buddhism  became  a  dominant 
religion  in  this  land.  You  know,  too,  that  when 
this  faith  spread  into  the  regions  where  it  still 
reigns,  it  was  carried  first  of  all  through  the 
agencies  of  political  power,  and  that  it  gained 
no  footing  in  any  land  except  as  it  adopted  and 
wove  into  its  own  system  the  superstitions  al- 
ready existing  there.  But  I  need  not  tell  you 
the  difference  between  all  this  and  the  early 
spread  of  the  Christian  gospel.  Christianity 
had   no   armies,   but   it   conquered   armies.     It 


38        LECTURE  II.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

started  with  an  obscure  individual  of  mean  par- 
entage, in  a  despised  city  of  a  narrow  province 
of  the  Roman  Empire,  and  was  without  the 
slightest  semblance  of  political  power ;  but  the 
strongest  government  of  the  world  came  to  ac- 
knowledge its  supremacy.  It  entered  into  no 
compromise  with  other  systems  of  religion  ;  but 
it  simply  overthrew  them,  and  took  their  place 
in  the  ascendency  they  had  held.  It  never 
yielded  a  whit  to  human  passions.  It  was  at  war 
with  all  pride  and  selfishness  and  sensuality ;  but 
it  conquered  human  hearts,  and  changed  them 
accordins:  to  its  will.  The  introduction  and 
early  spread  of  Christianity  are  facts  without  a 
parallel,  and  can  be  accounted  for  by  none  of 
the  ordinary  principles  which  explain  the  con- 
duct of  men. 

But  the  subsequent  history  of  Christianity  is  no 
less  marvellous.  It  met  and  subdued  the  bar- 
barous hordes  who  overran  Europe  and  broke  up 
the  Roman  Empire,  and,  by  its  simple  power,  has 
raised  them  to  a  height  of  social  prosperity  never 
known  before.  It  has  entered,  with  a  fresh  and 
living  inspiration,  into  all  the  art  and  culture 
which  have  succeeded  its  introduction.  It  has 
given  life  to  every  genuine  reform,  and  has  proved 
itself  to  be  the  only  agency  which  has  ever  shown 
itself  able  truly  to  educate  and  elevate  the  world. 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  39 

Much  is  said,  in  our  day,  about  freedom ;  but 
the  world's  knowledge  and  possession  of  liberty 
are  coincident  with  the  rise  and  progress  of 
Christ's  kingdom.  The  very  idea  of  liberty  was 
wanting  to  men  till  it  was  made  clear  by  the 
Christian  doctrine.  There  was  no  knowleds-e  of 
freedom  in  all  this  Oriental  world.  Take  India 
as  an  illustration,  and  find,  if  you  can,  in  the 
dreams  of  your  poets,  or  the  sayings  of  your  phi- 
losophers, or  the  doctrines  of  your  religion,  any 
more  than  in  the  practices  of  the  governments 
which  early  reigned  here,  a  recognition  of  the 
thought  that  man  is  entitled  to  freedom.  You 
know  very  well  that  there  was  no  liberty  here  ; 
that  the  only  person  who  was  called  free  was  a 
despot,  and  he  was  not  a  free  man.  The  same 
was  true  elsewhere.  We  sometimes  talk  of  the 
notion  of  liberty  as  held  by  the  ancient  Greeks 
and  Romans ;  but  this  notion  differs  radically  from 
that  which  men  have  since  received  from  the 
Christian  doctrine.  All  that  the  Greeks  and 
Romans  knew  of  liberty  was  liberty  for  a  class,  — 
liberty  for  a  few,  and  not  for  all  mankind.  The 
Athenian  knew  that  he  himself  was  free,  and  the 
native  Roman  citizen  knew  that  he  was  free  born  ; 
but  that  it  constituted  the  true  and  proper  being 
of  all  men  to  be  free,  that  man  as  man  is  free  born, 
this   knew   neither  Plato  nor  Aristotle,  neither 


40        LECTURE  n. — TIIE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION" 

Cicero  nor  the  teacher  of  Iloman  law.  In  the 
great  Christian  principle  that  Christ  is  the  Son  of 
God,  and  that  he  died  for  man,  is  contained  the 
thought  that  the  individual  soul,  which  has  cost 
such  a  redemption,  is  of  infinite  worth,  —  a 
thought  in  whose  light  differences  of  rank  disap- 
pear, and  all  men,  Greek  and  Barbarian,  Jew  and 
Gentile,  bond  and  free,  are  seen  to  stand  on  equal 
terms  before  God.  The  blessings  which  men  have 
actually  received  from  this  doctrine  of  liberty 
have  been  in  exact  proportion  to  the  clearness 
with  which  the  Christian  thought  which  contains 
it  has  been  apprehended.  The  Christian  doctrine 
that  salvation  is  not  acquired  by  our  own  works, 
and  does  not  depend  upon  any  rank  or  righteous- 
ness or  merit  of  men,  but  is  wrought  out  for  us 
and  within  us  by  Christ's  all-perfect  work,  and  is 
received,  in  God's  free  grace,  through  a  simple 
faith  in  what  Christ  has  done,  —  this  doctrine  was 
set  before  the  world  as  the  true  doctrine  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  in  the  great  Reformation  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  with  such  a  clearness  and 
power  that  it  has  been  followed,  in  the  three 
hundred  years  succeeding,  by  a  wider  extension 
of  liberty,  and  a  further  increase  of  political  and 
social  blessings,  among  those  who  have  accepted 
the  Reformation,  than  had  been  attained  by  all 
the  world  in  all  its  history  before.     Nor  let  any 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATIOK.  41 

one  fancy  that  tins  is  an  accidental  connection,  or 
one  only  of  time  and  space  ;  for  every  close  stu- 
dent will  see  the  causal  link  which  binds  these 
facts  together.  "  The  doctrine  of  Justification  by 
Faith,"  says  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  "is  the  basis 
of  civil  freedom."  Hume  declares,  and  no  intel- 
ligent person  will  doubt,  that  it  is  to  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Puritans,  who  were  a  true  product 
of  the  Reformation,  that  England  owes  her  civil 
liberties.  The  movement  for  the  destruction 
of  the  slave-trade  and  the  abolition  of  slavery 
sprang  from  the  same  source.  Sir  Fo  well  Buxton, 
who  made  the  first  motion  in  the  English  Parlia- 
ment for  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  British 
West  Indies,  has  left  on  record  that  his  first  im- 
pulse to  this  course  was  due  to  the  Christian 
preaching  in  the  chapel  he  was  wont  to  attend. 
The  movement,  bitterly  opposed  by  selfishness 
and  cupidity,  was  carried  to  a  successful  issue  by 
those  who  believed  that  Christ  has  died  for  all 
men,  and  therefore  that  all  have  a  right  to  free- 
dom. It  is  the  same  belief,  which  would  not 
yield  even  in  the  face  of  arms,  which  has  carried 
forward  the  recent  struggle  in  the  United  States 
to  the  entire  and  perpetual  abolition  of  slavery 
there.  Slavery  has  ceased  in  every  Protestant 
country,  not  because  governments  have  conceded 
freedom  as  a  privilege,  but  because  men  have 


42      LECTur.E  n.  —  the  christian  religion 

claimed  it  as  a  right ;  but  the  right  has  never  been 
seen  and  never  maintained  except  as  the  Christian 
doctrine  has  first  revealed  it  to  men,  and  then 
inspired  them  with  the  hope  of  its  possession. 

Christianity  has  not  only  shown  itself  sufficient 
to  reform  political  institutions  and  improve  the 
social  condition  of  men,  but  it  has  wrought  reli- 
gious changes  still  more  extensive.  It  is  the 
only  religion  which  has  ever  been  able  effectually 
to  root  out  and  supplant  another.  To  a  certain 
degree  we  find  in  different  nations  different  sys- 
tems of  religion,  each  of  which  expresses  some 
national  trait,  and  represents  a  certain  phase  of 
national  development.  Resting  so  firmly  in 
national  peculiarities,  they  hold  a  strong  ground, 
from  which  they  are  only  with  extreme  difficulty 
dislodged.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  power 
has  been  able  to  overcome  this  difficulty  except 
that  of  the  Christian  religion  alone.  In  other 
instances  where  two  religions  have  come  in  con 
tact,  the  result  has  been  either  their  amalgama- 
tion, or  the  temporary  yielding  of  the  one  to  the 
other  by  the  constraint  of  physical  power.  You 
know  how  that  Buddhism  in  India  overbore  and 
crowded  down  for  a  time  the  prevailing  Brah- 
minism,  which,  however,  it  did  not  destroy ;  but 
which  showed  itself  able,  when  the  opportunity 
came,  to  throw  aside  the  later  faith,  and  regain 


WOETHY  OF  EXAMmATION  43 

its  old  ascendency.  There  is  no  longer  any 
Buddhism  in  the  land  of  its  earliest  and  exten- 
sive triumphs ;  while  it  maintains  itself  among 
the  millions  where  it  is  found  in  other  lands  only 
in  so  far  as  it  has  availed  itself  of  forces  not 
originally  its  own.  Christianity  is  the  only  reli- 
gion, which,  by  the  simple  might  of  its  own 
principles,  has  ever  truly  taken  the  place  of 
another.  And  can  it  have  done  this,  unless  it 
has  something  which  penetrates  deeper  suscep- 
tibilities of  the  soul  than  are  reached  by  the 
feeliugs  of  a  race,  or  the  thoughts  of  a  nation  ? 

And  whatever  this  religion  has  done  has  been 
always  in  face  of  an  intense  opposition.  Its 
victories,  unparalleled  and  mighty  as  they  are, 
have  never  been  achieved  without  a  struf]:<2:le. 
There  have  always  been  unbelievers  outside  the 
Church,  who  have  found  fault  with  its  evidences 
and  rejected  its  claims.  There  have  sometimes 
also  been  found  men  within  the  church  content 
to  receive  the  emoluments  and  dignities  of  high 
ecclesiastical  office,  while  they  have  despised  the 
doctrines  and  derided  the  faith  they  were  ex- 
pected to  teach.  I  enter  here  into  no  criticism 
upon  their  conduct,  and  only  allude  to  it  to 
make  clear  the  fact  that  all  the  hold  of  the 
Christian  system,  now  or  in  the  past,  on  the 
thoughts  of  men,  has  been  obtained  by  a  triumph 


44        LECTUEE  n.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

of  its  principles  througli  a  sore  conflict  with 
opposing  thoughts.  Moreover,  this  conflict  of 
thought  but  partly  represents  that  deeper  hostil- 
ity of  sentiment  and  will  which  this  religion 
necessarily  excites  in  every  breast.  It  is  not 
only  a  form  of  doctrine,  but  it  demands  a  changed 
purpose  and  a  new  life  from  all  who  receive  it. 
The  words  of  Jesus  to  his  original  disciples  are 
the  only  terms  in  which  his  claims  can  be  pre- 
sented :  "  If  any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him 
deny  himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  follow 
me  "  (Matt.  xvi.  24).  "  He  that  loveth  father 
or  mother  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me ; 
and  he  that  loveth  son  or  daughter  more  than  me 
is  not  worthy  of  me.  And  he  that  taketh  not 
his  cross  and  followeth  after  me  is  not  worthy  of 
me"  (Matt.  x.  37,  38). 

In  this  continued  struggle  with  the  thoughts 
and  sentiments  and  will  of  men,  the  Christian 
religion  has  been  continuously  victorious.  No 
one  can  study  its  history  without  noting  that 
apparent  reverses  have  revealed  themselves,  in 
the  course  of  time,  to  have  been  genuine  steps 
of  progress ;  and  no  one  can  study  the  history  ot 
the  world  without  noting  that  its  only  line  of 
unfading  light  and  growing  splendor  is  that 
traversed  by  the  progress  of  the  Christian  faith.  I 
know,  that,  in  Christian  lands,  there  are  evils  still 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMTNATION.  45 

unsubdued  whicli  Christianity  aims  to  destroy ; 
but  the  undoubted  fact  remains  of  their  steady 
diminution  before  the  steady  growth  of  Christian 
influence.  By  the  ancestors  of  the  present 
Christian  nations,  war  was  recognized  as  a 
nation's  normal  state,  and  the  same  word  desig- 
nated a  foreigner  and  a  foe ;  but  surely  all  this 
has  changed,  and  the  feeling  grows  in  Christian 
lands  that  nations  should  live  together  in  peace. 
In  confirmation  of  this  remark,  I  point  to  the  way 
in  vfhich,  during  the  present  year,  two  of  the 
most  prominent  Christian  nations  have  settled  a 
grave  international  dispute.  England  and  the 
United  States  agreed  to  refer  to  arbitration  a 
matter  which  formerly  they  would  have  sought 
to  settle  with  the  sword;  and  that  this  agreement 
has  been  secured  by  a  growth,  in  both  these 
nations,  of  the  Christian  sentiment  respecting 
war  and  national  friendship,  will  not  be  denied. 
Christianity  seeks  the  overthrow  of  all  evil 
among  men.  Its  grand  aim,  which  it  unceasingly 
puts  forth,  is  to  remove  all  war  and  oppression, 
and  vice  and  crime,  to  elevate  and  ennoble  and 
purify  all  the  relations  of  man  to  his  fellow-man, 
and  to  bind  all  nations  together  in  the  organic 
unity  of  a  body  wherein  Christian  love  is  the 
in-dwelling  soul,  and  Christ  himself  the  ever- 
living  head.     To  its  power  of  accomplishing  all 


46        LECTURE  II. — THE   CHRISTIAN  RELIGION" 

this,  the  Christian  religion  fearlessly  challenges 
every  scrutiny.  It  points  to  its  principles,  and  to 
what  it  has  already  done,  as  the  evidence  of  its 
aim,  and  of  what  it  can  do.  Slowly,  indeed,  but 
none^the  less  steadily  and  mightily,  is  its  great 
work  moving  on.  Notwithstanding  the  difficulties 
ever  in  its  path,  it  holds  a  stronger  power  in  the 
world  to-day  than  it  has  ever  done  before. 
From  the  icy  north,  from  the  sunny  south,  from 
the  far-off  isles  of  the  sea,  from  the  roving  tribes 
of  the  desert,  from  the  savage  wanderers  of  the 
forest,  from  the  cultivated  circles  of  enlightened 
life,  from  city  and  from  hamlet,  from  rich  and 
poor,  from  learned  and  ignorant  men,  from  every 
class  and  clime,  there  come  the  trophies  of  its 
victorious  power.  Look  at  the  influence  of  the 
Christian  religion  as  it  now  actually  exists,  and 
tell  me  what  this  marvel  means,  if  that  which 
causes  it  be  not  of  God. 

3.  Pass  now  from  these  general  considera- 
tions, and  see  what  this  religion  does  for  the  indi- 
vidual character.  It  aims  to  change  and  reform 
men;  which  it  also  has  certainly  done,  in  un- 
numbered instances.  It  has  entered  the  heart, 
and  tamed  fierce  passions,  and  transformed  ob- 
stinate prejudices,  and  rooted  out  deep-seated 
desires,  and  given  new  hopes,  a  new  purpose, 
and  a  new  life  ;  and  it  offers  to  do  this  in  behalf 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  47 

of  every  one  who  will  follow  its  precepts.  Look, 
in  illustration  of  its  power,  at  the  changes  which 
it  wrought  in  such  a  man  as  Saul  of  Tarsus.  No 
one  can  doubt  the  general  historical  accuracy  of 
the  narrative  respecting  him  as  given  in  the  New 
Testament ;  and  can  any  one  fail  to  discern  a  su- 
perhuman agency  in  the  transformation  wrought 
in  the  character  and  life  of  this  extraordinary 
man  ?  You  see  the  bold  and  haughty  young 
Pharisee,  highly  gifted  and  educated,  profoundly 
acquainted  with  the  Mosaic  law,  profoundly 
believing  in  all  its  requirements,  and  scrupulous- 
ly rigid  in  their  performance.  He  cannot  brook 
the  doctrine  taught  by  the  disciples  of  the  cruci- 
fied Nazarene,  that  the  morning  and  evening 
sacrifice,  and  all  the  ordinances  of  the  Jewish 
ritual,  are  now  meaningless  observances.  This 
doctrine  fills  him  with  rage ;  and,  breathing  out 
threatenings  and  slaughter,  he  goes  forth,  armed 
with  lawful  authority,  to  put  it  down  ;  but  sud- 
denly there  is  a  change.  The  angry  persecutor 
is  found  meek,  gentle,  submissive,  sitting  at  the 
feet  and  receiving  instruction  of  a  humble  dis- 
ciple of  the  Crucified  One.  The  Crucified  One ! 
Paul  himself  would  have  crucified  him  before, 
but  he  would  die  for  him  now.  There  is  now 
nothing  to  his  eye  so  glorious  as  this  same  Jesus 
of    Nazareth   whom   he   had    persecuted.      He 


48        LECTURE  II.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

enters  upon  his  service.  He  gives  up  all  his 
former  hopes  and  prospects  in  life.  For  the  love 
of  Jesus  he  consents  to  a  life  of  severe  toil  and 
sore  privation,  and  at  length  of  cruel  martyrdom. 
But  none  of  these  things  move  him,  neither 
counts  he  his  life  dear  unto  himself,  that  he 
might  testify  the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God. 
"  What  things  were  gain  to  me,"  he  says,  "  those 
I  counted  loss  for  Christ ;  yea,  doubtless,  and  I 
count  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of 
the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord,  for 
whom  I  have  suffered  the  loss  of  all  things,  and 
do  count  them  but  dung  that  I  may  win  Christ, 
and  be  found  in  him,  not  having  mine  own  right- 
eousness which  is  of  the  law,  but  that  which  is 
through  the  faith  of  Christ,  the  righteousness 
which  is  of  God  by  faith  "  (Phil.  iii.  7-9).  How 
do  you  explain,  gentlemen,  a  fact  like  this,  an 
undoubted  fact,  which,  however  conspicuous,  is 
far  from  standing  alone  in  the  annals  of  Christian 
history?  Changes  equally  impressive  abound 
in  lives  less  prominent  than  Paul's.  To  count- 
less numbers  who  have  hated  the  name  of  Jesus, 
that  name  has  become  the  dearest  of  all  names, 
in  earth  or  heaven.  Souls  burdened  with  a  sense 
of  sin,  deeply  conscious  of  that  guilt  which  every 
thoughtful  soul,  wherever  found,  sometimes  feels, 
have  gained  deliverance  through  their  faith  in 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  49 

him,  wliom  they  ever  after  love  and  praise,  as 
their  Life  and  Lord  and  All-sufficient  Saviour. 
They  testify  to  his  ever-living  power.  Their 
lives,  as  well  as  their  words,  bear  witness  that 
this  same  Jesus  that  was  crucified  lives,  and  is 
able  and  willing  to  save.  Jesus  saves.  He  does 
SAVE.  If  you  doubt  it,  come  and  see.  Examine 
the  records  of  Christian  biography  with  which 
Christian  literature  abounds,  take  instances, 
which  I  doubt  not  are  found  in  your  own  city. 
And  if  you  say  there  is  so  much  hypocrisy  and 
deceit  that  you  know  not  what  or  whom  to  trust, 
take  the  best  of  all  courses,  and  test  the  matter 
by  your  own  experience.  In  that  sense  of  sin, 
which  you,  I  know,  sometimes  have,  and  of 
whose  power  your  Hindu  records  furnish  such 
copious  and  such  impressive  illustrations,  —  a 
sense  which  continually  deepens  in  the  thoughtful 
soul,  while  the  fact  which  it  discloses  becomes 
more  dark  and  terrible  the  more  profoijndly  it  is 
considered, — Jesus  Christ  offers  to  save  you; 
and  you  have  the  surest  way  to  test  his  truth  and 
strength,  by  making  application  of  his  word. 

4.  Jesus  Christ  never  fails  to  satisfy  the  soul 
that  trusts  him.  "If  any  man  thirst,  let  him 
come  unto  me  and  drink,"  he  said;  and  a  great 
multitude,  whom  no  man  can  number,  have  hied 
to  the  fountain,  and  found  joy  and  peace  in  its 


50        LECTUKE  II.  —  THE   CHIUSTIAIT   RELIGION 

living  streams.  It  has  been  a  source  of  coin 
fort  and  strength,  alike  to  the  profoundest  and 
the  simplest  understanding.  It  satisfied  the 
great  soul  of  Chalmers;  and  it  satisfied  the 
poor  and  ignorant  woman  who  applied  to  him  for 
admission  to  the  Church,  and  who  could  only  tell 
him  what  she  thought  of  Christ  in  these  words: 
"I  cannot  describe  him,  but  I  would  die  for 
him."  Lofty  and  low,  learned  and  ignorant,  have 
alike  found  in  the  gospel  all  they  could  hope  or 
desire.  Its  gifts  are  unrestricted  by  any  land. 
They  come  to  all  people.  It  offers  the  richest 
blessings,  freely,  to  any  heart  that  will  receive 
them ;  and  no  one  who  has  actually  tested  it  has 
found  the  offer  vain. 

Whether  Christianity  be  divine  or  not,  that 
which  it  has  actually  done  merits  for  it  the  most 
earnest  attention  of  every  man.  A  religion 
which  can  go  about  among  the  poor  and  lowly 
and  uneducated,  and  which  can  gladden  and 
strengthen  and  purify  them  wherever  it  goes, 
and  which  at  the  same  time  can  feed  and  fill  and 
satisfy  the  lofty  intellects  which,  in  every  age, 
have  bowed  to  its  power,  may  have  in  it  some- 
thing which  every  man  needs,  and  into  which 
every  man  surely  should  inquire. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  any  fair  examination  of 
the  evidences  of  the  Christian  religion  ever  led 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  -51 

to  their  rejection.  Such  an  examination  has 
never  been  given  by  those  most  prominent  in 
their  denial  of  this  faith ;  for  their  utterances 
indicate  either  an  ignorance  of  its  character  and 
claims,  or  a  prejudice  against  them,  —  states  of 
mind  which  show  that  a  fair  examination  has 
not  been  made.  Two  men  of  fine  intellect  and 
thorough  scholarship,  but  disbelievers  in  Chris- 
tianity, once  set  themselves  to  write  treatises  for 
its  overthrow.  They  took  each  a  distinct  theme ; 
but  each  became  converted  to  the  Christian 
faith  by  the  investigations  which  his  theme 
required.  They  wrote  their  treatises,  which  we 
still  have,  —  Gilbert  West's  "  Observations  on  the 
Resurrection  of  Christ,"  and  Lord  Lyttleton's 
''  Observations  on  the  Conversion  of  St.  Paul," 
and  which  illustrate  what  I  suppose  would  always 
follow  a  thorough  examination  of  Christianity, 
even  by  an  unbeliever.  I  might  instance  Nean- 
der,  the  great  church  historian,  bom  a  Jew,  and 
converted  from  Judaism  because  he  saw  that  the 
evidence  of  the  gospel  was  irrefutable ;  or  Cole- 
ridge and  Schelling,  who  have  exercised  so 
potent  an  influence  upon  the  currents  of  philo- 
sophic thought,  and  who,  starting  with  an  entire 
unbelief  in  Christianity,  were  compelled  to  ac- 
cept it  by  the  requirements  of  the  profoundest 
speculation ;    but   enough   already   appears    to 


52        LECTURE  n.  —  THE  CHRISTIAN  RELIGION 

force  the  conviction  that  Christianity  not  only 
ought  to  be  examined  by  every  man,  but  that 
its  examination  is  the  most  important  work 
which  any  man  who  doubts  it  can  possibly 
undertake. 

Gentlemen,  if  Christianity  be  true,  two  things 
are  also  true  :  you  are  saved  by  it,  and  you  are 
lost  without  it ;  and  these  are  also  true  of  every 
human  soul.  If  Christianity  be  true,  Jesus 
Christ  can  save,  and  he  is  the  only  Saviour.  If 
this  system  has  truly  come  from  God,  then  God 
has  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his  only- 
begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  him 
should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life  :  and 
then  also  is  there  salvation  in  no  other ;  for  there 
is  none  other  name  given  under  heaven  among 
men,  whereby  we  can  be  saved.  Is  there  any 
other  question,  therefore,  so  momentous  to  you 
as  this?  any  other  upon  which  your  eternal 
life  or  death  hinges  ?  Remember  that  this  ques- 
tion is  not,  whether  Christianity  is  the  best  of  all 
religions,  but  whether  it  is  the  only  religion 
which  is  truly  good.  It  claims  to  be  the  only 
scheme  of  salvation.  It  claims  to  be  God's 
method;  and  God's  method  must  be  one  and 
single.  Am  I  not,  then,  justified  in  saying  that 
no  question  relating  to  power  or  enjoyment,  or 
even  your  bodily  life,  —  no  question  that  can  be 


WORTHY  OF  EXAMINATION.  53 

named,  —  has  sucli  interest  for  you,  such  undying 
interest,  as  the  question  whether  it  is  true  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God  and  Saviour  of 
the  world  ? 


III. 

THE  LIGHT  OF  LIFE. 


Gentlemen,  —  On  the  walls  of  the  famous 
lighthouse  of  Eddystone  is  the  inscription,  ''  To 
give  light  and  to  save  life."  It  tells  the  reason 
why  the  lighthouse  stands  there.  The  benighted 
mariner,  approaching  the  Cornwall  coast  at  a 
point  of  peculiar  peril,  beholds  the  beacon,  and 
escapes  the  danger.  Twice  since  a  lighthouse 
was  first  erected  there,  has  it  been  destroyed; 
and  the  wrecks  of  costly  vessels,  and  the  loss  of 
precious  lives,  which,  in  each  instance,  ensued, 
furnish  copious  testimony  to  its  value.  No  one 
doubts,  that,  by  giving  light,  it  is  also  the  means 
of  saving  life.  He  who  in  full  sight  of  the 
danger  would  still  press  heedlessly  upon  it, 
would  be  a  madman. 

Now,  reasoning  from  analogy,  it  is  very  easy 
to  argue,  that,  if  there  were  only  some  spiritual 
lighthouse  disclosing  the  perils  of  the  soul,  the 
voyager   of  life   would    steer   his   course   with 


THE  LIGHT   OF  LIFE.  55 

safety ;  but  the  analogy  does  not  hold.  In  the 
spiritual  world  life  is  not  saved  by  light :  spir- 
itual perils  are  not  avoided,  even  though  they 
are  seen.  If  light  were  sufficient  for  safety, 
there  would  really  be  no  danger  of  this  sort ; 
for  spiritual  light  shines  unceasingly  and  every- 
where. The  light  of  the  natural  sun,  filling  the 
heavens  and  flooding  the  earth,  is  but  the  symbol 
of  that  effulgence  which  fills  the  moral  world 
with  a  brightness  outshining  the  sun.  The 
proof  of  this  is  seen  in  the  striking  uniformity 
in  the  opinions  of  men  respecting  moral  truth 
and  obligation.  People  the  most  diverse  and 
remote,  with  the  most  extraordinary  differences 
of  government  and  religion  and  social  usages, 
are  yet  agreed  upon  the  foundation  questions  of 
right  -and  duty.  Such  men  as  Epictetus  and 
Marcus  Aurelius  and  Seneca  and  Socrates  and 
Shakya-Muni  and  Zoroaster  and  Confucius  show 
that  the  light  of  duty  is  original  and  univer- 
sal in  human  nature,  shining  with  different 
degrees  of  clearness,  but  in  every  man  sufficient- 
ly to  show  him  where  his  safety  lies.  Whether 
these  rays  of  light  are  so  uniform  because  the 
shinings  of  one  divine  Sun,  or  what  their  expla- 
nation, I  do  not  now  inquire.  I  only  wish  to 
point  to  their  universal  prevalence,  and  to  make 
prominent  the  truth,  that  they  belong  to  a  man 


56  LECTURE  m. 

just  as  his  manhood  does,  and  are  as  essential 
to  him,  and  as  inseparable  from  him,  as  is  his 
human  nature  itself. 

But  we  cannot  contemplate  this  fact  without 
meeting  also  another,  equally  prominent  and 
universal.  Clear  as  is  the  light,  undoubted 
as  is  the  voice  of  duty,  men  do  not  follow  it. 
In  this  I  only  state  a  matter  of  actual  fact, 
apparent  to  yourselves  and  to  every  one.  Is 
it  not  true,  that  men  in  general  do  not  live  up 
to  their  moral  convictions?  I  do  not  care  to 
ask  or  argue  the  question  whether  there  are  any 
exceptions  to  this  rule ;  for  it  suffices  if  you  ac- 
knowledge that  there  are  some  men  who  do  not 
d©  what  they  know  they  ought  to  do.  And  is 
it  not  indisputably  true,  that  great  multitudes,  to 
say  the  least,  are  justly  liable  to  this  charge  ? 
Can  you  name  any  virtue  upon  which  men  have 
not  turned  their  backs,  in  defiance  of  light  not 
only,  but  also  of  entreaty  and  expostulation  ? 
And  is  there  any  vice  or  crime  or  sin,  in  the 
long  catalogue  of  transgression,  which  men  have 
not  actually  chosen  and  continued  in,  notwith- 
standing they  saw  the  wrong  which  would  thus 
be  done,  and  the  ruin  which  would  thus  ensu(j  ? 
The  voyager  of  life  has  a  chart  on  which  his 
course  is  clearly  traced.  Every  peril  is  dis- 
tinctly noted.     Lighthouses  stand  along  every 


THE  LIGHT  OF  LIFE.  5T 

dangerous  coast.  Beacons  blaze  from  every 
cliff.  He  has  a  compass  which  never  varies,  and 
the  stars  are  shining  where  there  is  no  sun;  but 
all  this  will  not  keep  him  from  destruction.  He 
will  steer  upon  the  shoals,  and  be  wrecked  upon 
the  breakers,  notwithstanding  all  his  light  and 
warnings;  for  he  has  done  it,  and  is  doing  it 
still.  Who  has  not  read  of  such  instances  in 
the  past,  and  who  does  not  see  them  all  around 
him  at  the  present  day  ?  And  this,  we  should 
remember,  is  not  simply  the  case  with  unlettered 
men,  but  is  even  more  conspicuously  true  re- 
specting persons  of  culture,  in  whom  the  light 
shines  clearest  and  farthest.  Who  are  the 
monsters  of  vice  and  crime,  staining  the  bloody 
pages  of  past  history  with  the  darkest  dye,  and 
exceeding  the  prevailing  wickedness  of  their 
time  by  the  depth  of  their  own  corruption,  or 
who  to-day  are  the  men  upon  whom  your  eye 
fixes  as  the  chief  foes  to  law  and  liberty  and 
social  order,  but  those  whose  clearness  of  intelli- 
gence has  only  made  their  iniquity  more  clear  ? 
It  was  a  Roman  poet,  and  a  pagan,  who  uttered 
what  every  far-seeing  observer  echoes :  "I  see 
and  approve  the  better,  but  I  follow  the  worse." 
It  is  thus  apparent  that  the  trouble  with 
human  nature  relates  to  the  inner  source  and 
centre  of  a  man's  moral  purposes  and  moral  life. 


58  LECTUBE  in. 

It  is  not  the  intellect,  but  the  will,  whii^h  is  at 
fault.  I  make  no  inquiry  here  about  the  origin 
of  this  state  of  things.  I  simply  deal  with 
actual  facts,  respecting  which  there  can  be  no 
dispute.  However  originating,  there  is  actually 
found,  in  the  human  will,  a  deep  perverseness, 
which  the  human  intellect  is  abundantly  able  to 
disclose,  but  not  in  the  least  able  to  destroy.  If 
we  do  not  like  this  fact,  it  still  remains  inexor- 
ably true  ;  and  if  we  shut  our  eyes  upon  it,  think- 
ing thus  it  is  not  there,  this  is  only  as  the 
ostrich  thrusts  his  head  in  the  bushes,  and  deems 
himself  unseen  by  the  hunter  because  pre- 
vented from  seeing  him.  The  fact  itself  cannot 
long  be  ignored.  The  conviction  of  a  prevail- 
ing lack  of  harmony  between  our  moral  conduct 
and  our  moral  insight  is  too  clear  and  too  prom- 
inent to  be  hid.  It  forces  itself  to  view,  and  no 
one  can  see  it  unmoved  to  pain.  Call  it  by 
whatever  name,  —  a  sense  of  wrong  or  guilt  or 
sin,  —  it  carries  with  it  a  consciousness  of  blame- 
worthiness which  contains  both  shame  and  fear, 
and  is  the  source  of  the  deepest  misery  the  soul 
ever  experiences.  No  torture  of  the  rack  or 
the  stake  has  equalled  the  agony  which  men 
have  found  in  the  conviction  that  they  are  not 
what  they  ought  to  be.  Against  this  conviction 
arguments  are  futile.     To  say  that  it  is  a  phan- 


THE  LIGHT   OF  LIFE.  59 

tasm  of  a  morbid  consciousness  meets  the  un- 
doubted fact,  that  it  grows  with  the  increasing 
knowledge  of  ourselves,  and  that  it  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  weak  and  ignorant,  but  is  sometimes 
found  with  the  strongest  force  in  the  strongest 
minds.  To  suppose  it  occasioned  by  certain 
peculiarities  of  endowment  or  early  discipline 
contradicts  its  exhibition  by  persons  of  the  most 
diverse  traits,  and  of  exactly  opposite  training. 
It  is  not  confined  to  Christian  lands;  but  in- 
stances are  not  wanting  among  the  unchristian 
nations,  where  the  consciousness  of  guilt  has 
uttered  itself  in  terms  absolutely  appalling. 
Some  of  the  most  startling  and  pathetic  exam- 
ples of  this  consciousness  are  furnished  by  your 
own  Hindu  records.  The  truth  is,  that,  wherever 
any  clear  insight  into  the  actual  condition  of 
human  nature  prevails,  a  blameworthiness,  with 
its  attendant  fear  and  shame,  appears;  and  we 
can  neither  ignore  its  presence  nor  destroy  its 
power. 

You  will  agree  with,  me,  gentlemen,  that  a 
remedy  for  this  condition  would  be  an  incalcu- 
lable -blessing.  If  there  could  be  something  to 
destroy  this  prevailing  wretchedness  by  drying 
up  its  source,  —  which  could  relieve  from  the 
sense  of  evil  by  removing  the  evil  itself,  — ■ 
would  not  this  be  the  greatest  boon  which  human 


60  LECTURE  in. 

nature  could  either  receive  or  desire?  Surely 
no  region  ravaged  by  a  pestilence,  and  crowded 
thick  with  the  dying  and  the  dead,  ever  needed 
relief  so  perishingly,  as  the  world,  with  its  undy- 
ing consciousness  of  sin,  —  more  destructive 
and  more  fruitful  of  misery  than  any  mortal 
malady,  —  needs  salvation.  Do  you  not  in  this 
agree  wdth  me  ?  Does  not  the  world  itself, 
through  all  its  systems  of  religion,  express  the 
same? 

It  is  clear,  that  if  any  true  salvation  be  found, 
it  must  reach  the  will,  and  not  stop  short  with 
any  processes  of  the  intellect.  A  man's  intellect 
would  be  well  enough,  if  his  will  did  not  lead 
him  astray;  but  his  deceived  heart  turns  him 
aside,  and  instils  his  intellect  with  falsehood,  not- 
withstanding its  witness  to  the  truth.  There  is 
something  exceedingly  subtle  in  these  processes 
of  the  human  mind,  which,  if  we  are  wise,  we 
shall  not  overlook.  It  has  become  a  proverb 
that  — 

'f  A  man  convinced  against  his  will 
Is  of  the  same  opinion  still." 

Men  are  generally  unconscious,  till  they  prooe 
themselves,  of  the  net-work  of  sophistries  which 
the  will  weaves  around  the  intellect.  It  is  not 
uncommon  for  persons  to  learn  thai  they  have 


THE  LIGHT  OF  LIFE.  61 

been  strangely  deceived,  and  that  they  held  fast 
to  some  false  doctrine  even  while  they  thought 
they  were  holding  to  the  truth;  and  when 
some  clear  truth,  with  overpowering  conviction, 
has  penetrated  and  dispelled  all  delusions,  and 
has  poured,  its  light  in  such  full  effulgence  upon 
the  intellect  that  the  will  was  no  longer  able  to 
cloak  it,  men  have  sometimes  found  that  their 
will  has  not  yielded  to  the  truth,  but  has  turned 
away  from  it  in  hatred,  or  set  itself  against  it  in 
rage.  I  am  not  dealing  now  with  speculations, 
gentlemen,  but  with  undoubted  facts  of  human 
nature,  of  which  some  of  you  may  have  been 
conscious,  and  which  all  of  you,  as  close  observ- 
ers, must  have  seen.  The  actual  fact  is  before 
us,  —  the  darkest,  saddest,  and  most  terrible  fact 
which  can  be  named,  —  that,  when  the  will  is  no 
longer  able  to  blind  the  intellect,  it  still  can  and 
does  refuse  to  yield  to  the  truth  ;  it  can  and  does 
set  itself  in  opposition  to  the  truth  ;  and  the  truth, 
thus,  which  has  deeply  convinced,  does  not  save. 
The  plant  looks  upwards  spontaneously,  and  wel- 
comes the  sunlight  which  is  to  weave  from  its 
tissues  its  perfection  of  beauty.  The  animal 
runs  without  constraint  to  his  food,  and  rejoices 
in  the  sustenance  which  is  to  give  him  the  com- 
pleteness of  his  strength.  But  the  human  soul, 
needing  a  perfect  conformity  to  the  truth  for  ita 


62  LECTURE  ni. 

beauty  and  strength,  more  than  any  natural 
thing  needs  its  natural  support,  is  able  to  pervert, 
and  attempts  to  poison,  the  very  source  of  its 
purity  and  health.  There  can  be  no  possible 
remedy  for  this  which  does  not,  besides  convin- 
cing the  intellect,  also  convert  the  will.  Any  salva- 
tion for  man  which  can  bring  true  health  and 
gladness  and  purity  of  soul  must  possess,  not  sim- 
ply a  means  of  instruction,  but  have  also  power 
of  inspiration.  It  must  be  able  to  furnish  to  the 
will  a  new  principle  of  life  and  liberty. 

But  a  deeply-interesting  question  here  arises, 
How  could  such  a  remedy  ever  be  found  ?  If 
the  true  remedy  must  work  upon  the  will,  what 
sort  of  elements,  to  enable  it  thus  to  do,  must  it 
possess?  "Mere  intellect,"  said  the  lynx-eyed 
Aristotle,  "mere  intellect  never  moves  any  thing ;" 
while  it  is  not  only  movement,  but  a  movement 
in  exact  counteraction  of  another  already  existing, 
that  men  must  have  in  order  to  be  saved. 
Whence  such  a  movement  ?  Plainly  fronTno  in- 
creasing light  of  duty.  In  a  French  story,  pop- 
ular not  long  ago,  there  is  a  scene  in  which  an 
escaped  convict  finds  himself  in  a  crowded  court- 
room, where  his  own  crime  has  been  charged 
upon  another  person  then  on  trial  for  the  same. 
It  is  a  case  of  mistaken  identity  ;  but  the  evidence 
is  clear,  and  the  unfortunate  prisoner  is  likely  to 


THE  LIGHT   OF  LIFE.  6S 

be  condemned.  The  real  offender,  unknown  to 
any  one  present,  but  fully  conscious  of  the  mis- 
take which  has  been  made,  and  the  wrong  which 
is  likely  to  follow,  is  conscious  also  that  he  ought 
to  prevent  the  wrong  by  acknowledging  him- 
self to  be  the  criminal.  We  are  then  treated  to 
an  elaborately-drawn  process  of  argumentation, 
which  the  guilty  man  is  supposed  to  hold  with 
himself,  to  determine  whether  he  shall  do  what 
his  convictions  of  duty  demand.  The  result  of 
the  process  is  his  coming  forward,  and  declaring 
to  the  astonished  court  that  the  prisoner  ought 
to  be  released,  while  he  himself  should  rightfully 
take  his  place.  Such  a  scene  may  do  for  a 
French  novel ;  but  it  is  not  high  art,  and  does  not 
reveal  the  great  artist,  because  it  is  not  true  to 
actual  life.  Such  a  result  could  never  be  reached 
in  such  a  way.  The  moment  a  man  begins  to 
argue  with  himself  whether  he  will  do  his  duty, 
he  has  already  secretly  settled  it  in  his  will  that 
the  duty  shall  not  be  done ;  and,  unless  something 
other  than  his  argument  comes  in  as  a  motive,  the 
end  of  it  all  will  find  him  exactly  where  he  stood 
at  the  beginning.  No  man  does  his  duty  simply 
from  the  knowledge  of  it.  "  Knowledge,"  said 
one,  who  in  far  reaching  insight  was  Aristotle's 
peer,  "  knowledge  puffeth  up,  but  charity  —  love, 


64  LECTURE  m. 

the  living  root  of  freedom  — buildeth  up."  ^'  Un- 
less a  man  loves  righteousness,  no  knowledge  can 
make  him  righteous.  Love  alone  has  strength  to 
lead  one  to  duty ;  but  love  is  not  an  inference. 
You  reach  it  by  no  process  of  argument.  You 
do  not  even  choose  to  love.  Love  inspires  your 
choice,  and  is  not  its  object.  Love  enters  the 
will  with  a  living  inspiration,  and  makes  one 
willing  in  the  day  of  its  power. 

From  all  this  it  follows  that  no  self-renovation  is 
possible.  The  enslaved  will  cannot  emancipate 
itself  We  need  the  power  of  another  will  to  be 
exercised  upon  our  own.  It  is  quite  clear,  if 
closely  scanned,  that  nothing  can  work  upon  a 
will  but  a  will  itself,  or  something  into  which  a 
will  enters.  A  thought  may  instruct  us ;  but  we 
can  only  be  inspired  by  a  person,  or  a  sentiment 
or  deed  which  comes  from,  and  carries  with  it,  a 
living  personal  agency.  It  is  not  light  which 
saves  us,  but  only  life.  It  is  not  the  precepts  of 
life,  but  life  itself,  which  alone  can  lead  and  lift  us 
into  life.  As  in  the  world  of  organic  existence, 
life  is  only  begotten  and  nourished  by  life ;  so  in 
the  moral  and  spiritual  realm,  all  deep  senti- 
ments, all  great  deeds,  are  evoked  and  nourished 
by  something  kindred  to  themselves.     The  first 

*  1  Cor.  viii.  1. 


THE  LIGHT  OF  LIFE.  65 

incitement  and  only  support  to  any  personal 
activity  come  from  what  is  itself  personal. 

If  there  be,  therefore,  any  salvation  for  men, 
it  must,  first  of  all  and  last  of  all,  possess  this  ele- 
ment of  personal  power  ;  it  must  be  able  to  enter 
the  soul  with  a  true  inspiration,  delivering  the 
enslaved  will  from  its  bondage,  and  giving  it  the 
joy  of  a  true  liberty  by  infusing  it  with  the 
strength  of  a  perfect  life.  And  it  can  only  do 
this  by  presenting  before  us,  in  a  form  we  can 
apprehend,  a  living  person,  whose  sentiments 
and  deeds  can  truly  inspire  us,  whose  will  can 
become  truly  dominant  over  our  will,  and  who 
thus  becomes  truly  our  King  and  Lord,  to  whom 
we  yield,  and  whom  we  follow  in  the  joy  of  our 
new-found  freedom,  and  with  the  full  strength  of 
our  new-found  life.  Would  not  the  knowledge 
of  such  a  person  be  most  desirable?  If  there 
could  be  found  a  teacher  who  is  also  a  saviour, 
—  one  who  could  both  instruct  us  in  duty  and  in- 
spire us  to  a  living  obedience,  might  it  not  be 
claimed  for  him  that  he  should  receive  the  hom- 
age of  the  world  ? 

To  these  facts  add  another  equally  clear. 
Among  all  the" personages  of  history,  only  One 
has  ever  proposed  for  himself  such  a  work  ;  and 
only  in  behalf  of  One  has  it  ever  been  claimed 
that   he   has  actually  accomplished  it.     There 


66  LECTURE  m. 

have  been  many  great  teachers,  to  whose  doc- 
trines we  yield  our  assent,  and  to  whose  livcjs  we 
give  our  admiration ;  but  only  One  among  them 
all  claims  to  be  a  saviour.  To  a  world  dying  for 
want  of  a  living,  personal  saviour,  only  One  liv- 
ing person  has  offered  himself  as  all  that  the 
world  needs.  You  know  to  whom  I  refer.  You 
anticipate  me  when  I  say  that  Jesus  Christ  alone, 
through  all  the  ages,  claims  to  be  a  saviour  for 
men.  He  is  indeed  a  teacher.  He  stands  con- 
spicuous ;  he  stands  peerless  among  all  the  sages 
of  the  world.  You  yourselves  will  acknowledge 
his  pre-eminence  here.  But  not  on  this  account, 
not  simply  because  He  is  the  greatest  of  teachers, 
does  he  claim  the  allegiance  of  mankind.  The 
greatness  of  Jesus  Christ  is  in  his  offer  of  sal- 
vation and  his  fitness  to  save. 

Any  heroic  deed  carries  with  it  some  power 
of  inspiration.  Any  act  of  self-forgetfulness  or 
self-devotion  has  a  tendency  to  kindle  in  other 
souls  the  same.  Love  begets  love.  But  as  all 
the  light  and  warmth  in  the  natural  world  come, 
through  various  transmutations,  only  from  the 
sun ;  so  every  loving  and  self-forgetting  deed  has 
its  source,  through  whatever  medium  transmitted, 
in  some  shining  of  God's  love.  In  him  alone  is 
the  fulness  of  love.  From  him  alone  can  all  love 
spring;  and  only  in  the  clear  manifestation  of 


THE  LIGHT  OF  LIFE.  67 

him  and  his  love,  in  a  form  easy  to  discern  and 
impossible  to  deny,  is  there  an  exhaustless  ener- 
gy of  inspiration  sufficient  to  overcome  all  self- 
seeking,  and  to  kindle  every  selfish  will  with  the 
life  and  liberty  of  self-forgetting  love.  But  such 
a  manifestation  requires  the  personal  appearance 
of  God,  in  a  living  embodiment  of  himself 
among  men.  Only  thus  can  we  most  truly  and 
fully  receive  the  inspiration  of  his  love. 

Theism  speaks  of  God  as  a  living  spirit,  to 
whom  human  souls  may  come  and  worship  ;  but 
it  presents  no  living  motive  thus  to  do.  Much 
as  we  might  wish  it  otherwise,  the  lamentable 
fact  remains,  that  men  do  not  spontaneously  come 
to  God.  Left  to  themselves,  they  seek  their  own 
ends,  and  turn  away  from  him.  Simple  theism 
has  nothing  to  reverse  this  tendency.  Its  thought 
of  God  is  too  vague  to  have  personal  power  over 
men.  As  the  sunlight,  all  glorious  though  it  be, 
does  not  warm  the  atmosphere  through  which  it 
passes  till  its  beams  have  been  reflected  from 
the  earth ;  so  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  God 
may  shine  resplendent  through  all  our  thoughts, 
without  any  vivifying  warmth,  till  our  thoughts 
receive  it  through  some  living  reflection  of  him. 
Herein  is  the  fitness  of  Jesus  Christ  to  inspire 
and  save  men.  He  appears  before  us  as  the  liv- 
ing God  in  human  form.     It  is  claimed  of  him 


68  LECTURE  m. 

that  he  is  the  eternal  Word,  which  was  in  the 
beginning  with  God,  and  which  was  God;  by 
whom  all  things  were  made,  and  without  whom 
there  was  not  any  thing  made  that  was  made.* 
He  repeatedly  makes  the  same  claim  for  him- 
self, f  He  supports  this  claim  by  his  own  words 
not  only,  but  by  a  power  over  Nature  which  bore 
witness  to  his  words.  He  showed  himself  to  be 
the  Lord  of  things  created ;  and  thus  he  mani- 
fested forth  his  glory,  and  his  disciples  believed 
on  him.t  Nature  appears  as  his  servant,  which 
hears  his  voice,  and  does  his  will.  He  turns  the 
water  into  wine.  He  speaks  to  the  winds  and 
waves,  and  they  obey  him.  The  trees  of  the  field, 
and  the  fish  of  the  sea,  do  his  bidding.  He  heals 
diseases  of  every  sort.  He  makes  the  blind  to 
see,  and  the  deaf  to  hear,  and  the  dead  to  live. 
Through  the  three  years  in  which  his  public  life 
was  manifested,  Nature  is  seen  to  move  as  re- 
sponsive to  his  will  as  the  pulse  beats  with  the 
throbbing  of  the  heart;  and,  when  he  was  cruci- 
fied, dead,  and  buried,  he  rose  from  the  sepulchre, 
as  the  Lord  of  life,  with  power  over  death  and 


*  John  i. 

t  Matt.  ix.  5,  6  ;  xi.  27 ;  xviii.  20  ;  xxvi.  64  ;  xxviii.  20.  Mark  ii. 
9,  10.  Luke  V.  23,  24.  John  v.  19,  20,  23  ;  viii.  58 ;  ix.  36,  37  ;  x.  15, 
30,  38  ;  xiv.  9,  13,  14 ;  xv.  23  ;  xvi.  15  ;  xvii.  10,  21. 

X  John  ii. 


THE  LIGHT   OF  LIFE.  69 

the  grave.  These  facts  are  supported  by  so  many 
and  such  competent  witnesses,  that  an  unwilling 
world  has  been  forced  to  accept  them;  and  they 
stand  out  in  the  face  of  the  most  searching  scru- 
tiny ever  directed  towards  any  facts,  with  an 
evidence  unrefuted  because  irrefutable. 

The  significance  of  these  facts  is  in  the  evi- 
dence they  furnish  that  the  Creator  and  Lord  of 
Nature  is  man's  Redeemer.  God  is  manifest  in 
the  flesh,  that  he  might  reconcile  the  world  unto 
himself  In  Jesus  Christ,  God  comes  nigh  to 
man,  in  order  to  lift  him  from  his  degradation 
and  sin  unto  the  purity  and  the  blessedness  of  a 
divine  fellowship.  This  is  not  because  of  man's 
repentance  or  propitiation,  or  good  works  of 
any  sort,  but  solely  because  God  loves  him,  and 
seeks  to  save  him.  God  commendeth  his  love 
to  us,  in  that,  while  we  were  yet  sinners,  i.e.,  be- 
fore we  had  purchased  his  favor  by  any  act  of 
obedience,  Christ  died  for  us."^  Here  is  not  only 
a  work  of  God's  free  grace ;  but  whoever  thinks 
carefully  will  see  that  in  no  other  imaginable 
way  could  God's  love  to  man  be  made  known. 
It  is  very  clear  that  this  love  is  revealed  through 
none  of  the  processes  of  Nature.  Not  only  have 
men  failed  to  find  it  there,  —  all  religions  from 

*  Rom.  V.  8. 


70  LECTURE   in. 

• 

the  light  of  Nature  giving  no  glimpse  of  God's 
grace,  —  but  Nature  cannot  give  man  any  such 
revelation,  simply  because  Nature  has  not  got  it 
to  give.  Nature  reveals  the  Divine  Existence. 
The  things  made  declare  their  Maker.  Nature 
gives  vast  proof  of  God's  power  and  wisdom. 
The  earth  and  the  heavens  are  resplendent  with 
these  glories.  Nature  also  teaches  us  his  benef- 
icent goodness.  The  infinite  adaptations  of 
created  things  to  living  wants,  and  the  boundless 
provision  of  Nature  for  our  sentient  need,  are 
everywhere  recognized,  and  are  fitted  to  awaken 
universal  praise.  So,  also,  when  we  look  widely 
into  the  course  of  history,  and  see  the  working 
of  a  supreme  Ruler,  who  putteth  down  kings  and 
setteth  up  kings,  who  enlargeth  the  nations  and 
straiteneth  them  again,  we  find  witness  of  a 
divine  righteousness  and  justice,  to  which  the 
human  conscience  also  clearly  responds.  But  in 
all  this  there  is  no  evidence  that  God  loves  man, 
or  that  he  can  forgive  sin.  His  beneficent  gifts, 
doubtless,  show  that  he  desires  our  happiness; 
but  they  contain  no  revelation  of  his  love. 
These  gifts  are  but  the  products  of  his  will. 
They  cost  him  nothing.  He  has  but  to  speak, 
and  they  are  done.  But  love  is  the  leaving  of 
one's  self  for  another:  love  is  the  giving  of  one's 
self   to   another.       God's   love   to   man   cannot 


THE  LIGHT  OF  LIFE.  71 

be  shown  in  any  gifts  of  his  creation,  however 
rich  and  numerous.  It  is  the  bestowal  of  him- 
self, the  gift  of  his  uncreated  fulness  to  needy- 
souls,  which  alone  can  bring  any  revelation  of 
his  love.  Moreover,  the  gift  truly  expressive  of 
love  must  cost  the  giver  something.  Love  is  a 
sacred  and  sacrificial  fire,  which  can  burn  only  on 
an  altar ;  and  God's  love,  when  profoundly  consid- 
ered, is  inseparable  from  the  thought  of  a  sacrifice. 
God's  incarnation,  and  the  manifestation  of  him- 
self to  us  in  the  person  and  life  and  death  of 
Jesus  Christ,  is  a  sacrifice  from  whose  mysteri- 
ous depths  comes  a  declaration  of  grace  and  love 
which  Nature  had  no  voice  to  utter,  and  which 
man  himself  had  otherwise  no  power  to  discern. 
This  love  of  God,  thus  revealed,  has  a  power 
to  inspire  men  ;  and  the  light  of  the  knowledge 
of  the  glory  of  God,  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ, 
is  also  life  to  the  world.  For,  let  one  grasp  the 
full  significance  of  the  statement ;  let  him  truly 
see  that  the  work  which  men  have  vainly  sought 
to  accomplish  by  their  sacrifices  and  rites,  God 
has  wrought  by  the  gift  of  himself  in  tlie  person 
of  his  Son ;  let  it  clearly  appear  that  God  has 
done  all  this  for  men,  not  because  they  deserved 
it,  but  only  because  he  loved  them  ;  not  because 
he  needed  them,  but  because  they  stood  in  such 
perishing  need  of  him ;    not  because  he  should 


72  LECTUKE  m. 

be  enriched  by  the  returning  allegiance  which 
his  love  should  enkindle,  but  only  that  they 
might  be  endowed  with  his  unspeakable  fulness: 
let  it  but  be  known  that  God  so  loved  the  world  that 
he  gave  his  only-begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 
lasting life,*  —  and  there  is  a  power  in  this  love 
which  enters  the  will  with  a  living  inspiration, 
and  kindle^  there  a  love,  which  shall  render 
obedience  in  liberty  to  the  law  of  righteousness. 
He  who  can  stand  against  all  the  revelations  of 
law,  who  has  resisted  every  commandment,  and 
refused  obedience,  must  yield  to  the  power  of 
the  love  of  the  Son  of  God.  Does  not  love  al- 
ways seek  and  secure  its  counterpart  ?  Is  it  not 
thus  even  with  human  love  ?  I  have  only  to 
know,  that,  among  human  hearts,  there  is  one 
which  loves  me,  and  though  I  have  scorned  and 
hated  and  bitterly  entreated  it,  yet  its  love  shall 
melt  me,  and  bring  me  to  penitence  and  grati- 
tude and  love.  In  like  manner,  if  I  can  truly  see 
that  God  loves  me,  and  has  given  himself  in 
Jesus  Christ  to  me,  —  as  truly  and  as  fully  to  me 
as  though  I  stood  alone  in  the  great  immensity, 
the  only  object  of  his  care  and  grace,  — whatever 
has  been  my  attitude  towards  himself  and  hia 

*  John  iii.  16. 


THE  LIGHT   OF  LIFE.  73 

law  hitherto,  this  knowledge  of  his  love  becomes 
eternal  life  in  whomsoever  it  is  received. 

I  have  heard  of  an  artist  who  wished  to  make 
a  statue  of  Christ.  The  idea  filled  his  soul ;  but, 
before  attempting  to  express  it  in  marble,  he 
sought  to  mould  it  in  clay.  To  test  his  work,  he 
set  the  clay  image  upon  a  pedestal,  and  sum- 
moned his  little  child  to  behold  it.  There  was 
no  inscription  upon  the  image ;  none  of  the  ordi- 
nary accompaniments  belonging  to  the  represen- 
tations of  Christ  —  no  cross,  no  crown  of  thorng 
—  were  there ;  but  so  perfectly  had  the  artist  rep- 
resented his  ideal  in  the  clay  form,  that  it  is  said 
the  child,  as  she  gazed  upon  it,  reverently  folded 
her  hands,  and  exclaimed,  "  The  Redeemer  !"  Id 
like  manner,  I  believe  that  the  portraiture  of 
Jesus  Christ  and  his  work,  as  given  in  the  New 
Testament,  needs  only  to  be  contemplated  by  the 
childlike  heart  ready  to  receive  its  impressions, 
and  there  will  come  to  the  soul  a  revelation  of 
the  divine  love,  which  carries  its  own  witness  to 
its  truth,  and  which  is  able  to  change  any  soul, 
however  selfish,  into  the  likeness  of  God's  love. 
The  life  of  Jesus  Christ  has  a  light  which  is  also 
the  life  of  men. 


IV. 


THE  NEED   OF  A  DIVINE  WORK  IN   MAN'S 
EEDEMPTION. 


Gentlemen,  —  The  universal  prevalence  of  a 
religious  sentiment  has  been  often  remarked. 
"Go  over  the  world,"  says  Plutarch,  "and  you 
may  find  cities  without  walls,  without  theatres, 
without  money,  without  art ;  but  a  city  without  a 
temple  or  an  altar,  or  some  order  of  worship,  no 
man  ever  saw."  There  is,  almost  everywhere, 
connected  with  this  sentiment,  the  conviction  that 
God  has  revealed  himself  unto  men  in  some 
special  way,  in  accordance  with  which  alone  a 
union  with  him  becomes  possible.  So  deep  and 
wide-spread  is  this  conviction,  that  attempts  to 
ignore  it,  or  explain  it  away,  have  always  failed ; 
while  the  authors  of  these  attempts  have  some- 
times borne  unwitting  testimony  to  the  power  of 
this  conviction,  even  upon  themselves.  Lord 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  who  has  been  called  the 
prince  of  English  deists,  in  his  autobiography, 


74 


LECTUEE  IV.  75 

published  by  his  family  some  years  after  his  death, 
relates,  that  having  written  his  book,  in  which  he 
had  sought  to  set  aside  the  notion  of  a  divine 
revelation,  and  being  in  doubt  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of  its  publication,  he  knelt  before  his  open 
window,  and  prayed  the  Supreme  Ruler  to  re- 
solve his  doubts  by  an  audible  sign  from  heaven. 
He  goes  on  to  declare,  that  the  answer  was  actu- 
ally received ;  and  on  the  strength  of  the  sign, 
which  he  supposed  to  be  a  revelation  from  God, 
he  publishes  his  book,  in  which  he  seeks  to  show 
that  any  other  revelation  from  God  than  that 
which  the  original  light  of  nature  furnishes  is 
both  unnecessary  and  impossible.  Lord  Herbert 
pens  the  account,  apparently  unconscious  of  the 
singular  contradiction  of  his  act  to  his  doctrine ; 
but  the  account  illustrates  how  ineradicable  is 
the  conviction  that  men  need  a  divine  revelation, 
and  that, -in  some  way,  the  need  can  be  supplied. 
And  yet  I  meet  the  question  very  frequently 
among  yourselves,  whether  men  have  not  suf- 
ficient light  of  their  own,  and  whether  they  need 
any  other  way  than  their  own  repentance  to  gain 
access  to  God.  What  need  of  a  book  and  a 
mediator?  you  say.  Cannot  we  find  God,  and 
approach  unto  him,  directly  of  ourselves  ?  Such 
a  question  is  doubtless  worth  consideration  ;  and 
yet,  if  you  closely  note  it,  you  will  see  that  the 


76  LECTURE  rV. — NEED  OF  A  DIVINE 

very  terms  of  the  inquiry  furnish  its  sufficient 
reply.  For  who  are  we  f  and  who  is  God  f  and 
how  can  the  finite  find  the  Absolute  ?  or  how 
can  we  approach  him  ?  The  truth  is,  the  finite 
only  finds  itself  through  the  Absolute,  and  we 
only  gain  our  own  self-consciousness  through  our 
consciousness  of  God  ;  for  the  partial,  the  in- 
complete, has  no  power  of  self-revelation.  The 
partial  is  never  disclosed  save  in  the  presence  of 
the  Perfect,  —  the  incomplete  in  the  light  of  the 
All-complete.  As  there  is  no  standard  of  the  ugly, 
the  false,  and  the  wrong ;  as  these  can  only  be 
measured  and  manifested  by  the  beautiful,  the 
true,  and  the  good,  —  thus  also  the  finite  cannot 
limit  itself,  and  cannot  make  itself  known  even 
as  finite.  It  is  brought  to  light,  it  is  seen  to  be, 
only  in  the  presence  of  the  Infinite.  We  there- 
fore have  no  being  nor  power  to  find  God,  save 
as  he  first  finds  us,  and  discloses  ourselves  to  our- 
selves in  the  light  of  his  presence. 

This  point,  correctly  apprehended,  is  destruc- 
tive of  a  notion  current  among  yourselves  that 
our  self-consciousness,  inasmuch  as  it  recognizes 
the  self  as  other  than  God,  is  the  very  sum  and 
substance  of  our  sins.  This  surely  cannot  be,  if 
our  consciousness  of  self  is  only  possible  through 
our  consciousness  of  God.  Our  personal  being  is 
in  this  personal  self-consciousness;  and  to  call  this 


WOEK  IN  man's  EEDEMPTION.  YT 

sin  obliterates  all  moral  distinctions,  and  falsifies 
the  very  ground  of  truth  itself  The  fact  of  sin 
is  deeper,  and  far  different  from  this.  Not  that 
we  are  conscious  of  self  as  other  than  God ;  but 
that,  being  thus  conscious,  we  have  deter- 
mined to  centre  the  self  upon  itself  rather  than 
upon  him,  —  this  is  the  secret  of  our  sin.  We 
have  sought  self  as  an  end,  instead  of  God,  and 
have  thus  voluntarily  subjected  ourselves  to  self- 
ishness as  our  law,  instead  of  love  ;  and  this  is  the 
source  of  our  shame  and  guilt  and  death.  God  has 
not  made  us  thus ;  but  we  are  the  sole  authors  of 
our  own  sin.  The  self-consciousness  which  he 
gives  is  a  reality,  for  it  is  founded  in  him  ;  and 
it  is  a  good,  for  it  is  fitted  to  find  purity  and 
blessedness  and  life  in  him.  Not  in  our  self- con- 
sciousness, but  in  our  self-determination,  is  our 
sin;  and  not  in  the  self-determination,  which, 
abstractly  considered,  pertains  to  our  freedom,  and 
is  involved  in  self- consciousness,  but  in  the  de- 
termination of  the  self,  not  simply  by  itself,  but 
to  and  for  itself,  —  a  determination  thus  which 
chooses  self,  and  prefers  self,  and  serves  self,  rath- 
er than  God.  Sin  does  not  consist  in  any  limi- 
tation of  our  powers,  of  which  God,  in  making  us 
finite,  is  the  wise  and  righteous  Author,  but  in  a 
direction  of  our  powers,  which,  in  our  self- 
determination,   we  have  made   and   chosen   for 

7* 


78  LECTUEE  IV. — NEED  OF  A  DmNB 

ourselves.  We  recognize  this  sin  as  a  wrong,  for 
which  we  condemn  ourselves,  and  which  we 
know,  also,  to  be  worthy  the  condemnation  of 
God.  We  suffer  under  this  recognition,  with  a 
suffering  as  peculiar  in  kind  as  it  is  unequalled 
in  degree.  What  consciousness  does  not  testi- 
fy to  the  difference  between  the  suffering  which 
comes  from  a  calamity  uncaused  by  ourselves,  and 
that  which  arises  from  our  own  sin  ?  To  suffer 
wrong,  and  to  do  wrong ;  to  have  regret  for 
what  another  has  done  to  us,  and  to  have  remorse 
for  what  we  ourselves  have  done,  —  what  a  broad 
gulf  separates  these  two  in  every  thoughtful 
mind !  To  seek  our  own  self-end  rather  than 
God,  to  make  selfishness  our  motive  and  law  rath- 
er than  love,  is  an  act  of  folly  so  stupendous,  that 
a  reasonable  being  must  see  its  unreasonableness ; 
and,  when  one  recognizes  such  an  act  and  state  as 
legitimately  his  own,  he  cannot  but  feel  there- 
with the  keenest  sense  of  degradation.  But*  the 
unreasonable  is  seen  to  be  such,  only  in  the  light 
of  the  perfectly  reasonable.  It  is  the  perfect 
by  which  alone  the  imperfect  is  measured  and 
made  manifest.  God's  revelation  of  himself 
is  the  light  in  which  our  self-consciousness  be- 
comes disclosed;  and  it  is  in  the  knowledge  of 
his  all-perfect  holiness,  that  we  come  to  know 
our  sin.    In  other  words,  sin  becomes  revealed  to 


WORK  m  man's  redemption.  79 

us,  as  contrary  to  God's  will ;  and  the  clearer 
view  we  have  of  him,  the  more  abhorrent  to  him 
does  sin  appear,  and  the  more  degrading  to  our- 
selves. It  is  his  will,  as  revealed  in  the  original 
light  of  our  self-consciousness,  that  we  should 
love  him.  Such  a  command  is  both  wise  and 
righteous,  and  calls  for  both  our  obedience  and 
praise.  It  is  the  highest  privilege,  and  the 
source  of  our  only  blessedness,  to  love  God.  To 
turn  away  from  him,  and  make  ourselves  our 
centre,  is  the  turning  from  life,  and  the  choosing 
of  death.  Selfishness  is  our  curse  and  woe, 
though  we  have  chosen  it  for  our  delight.  This 
is  no  arbitrary  arrangement ;  for  it  only  becomes 
manifest  to  us  in  the  light  of  the  Eternal  Reason. 
We  see  it  to  be  divinely  reasonable  and  just  that 
selfishness  should  blight  every  hope  and  destroy 
all  joy.  Self-seeking  must  ever  be  self-destruc- 
tive, for  life  is  only  in  love.  We  speak  truly  when 
we  say  that  God  has  ordained  it  thus  ;  but  he  has 
ordained  it  only  because  he  saw  its  reasonable- 
ness, —  only  because  it  was  worthy  of  him,  as 
Eternal  Reason,  thus  to  do.  Whatever  is  reason- 
able must  ever  be  his  will,  not  because  any 
nature  of  things  makes  it  so,  nor  because  the 
reasonable  is  some  external  necessity  which  con- 
strains his  will,  but  because  God  himself  is  the 
Absolute  Reason.     It  is,  therefore,  most  reasona- 


80  LECTURE  IV.  —  NEED   OF  A   DIYDTE 

able  for  the  finite  reason  to  love  and  worship 
God.  lie  is  our  rightful  Lord.  He  is  the  uni- 
versal Sovereign ;  and  all  the  reasonable  relations 
of  things  are  ordained  of  his  almighty  and  eter- 
nal will.  The  law  which  we  should  have  obeyed, 
but  have  broken,  —  the  law  of  love,  —  is  a  divine 
law.  The  consequences  of  obedience  or  disobe- 
dience are  divinely  assigned.  That  the  selfish- 
ness which  is  our  sin  is  a  curse  to  us,  the  greatest 
curse  we  can  conceive ;  that  it  brings  with  it  ruin 
and  every  woe,  —  is  a  divine  decree,  which  only 
expresses  divine  wisdom  and  all-perfect  right- 
eousness ;  a  truth  which,  when  profoundly  con- 
sidered, becomes  exceedingly  terrible.  Divine 
wisdom  does  not  change  ;  divine  righteousness 
is  eternal.  Is  there,  then,  no  change  for  the  curse 
of  sin  ?  Must  these  consequences  of  death  and 
ruin  be  perpetual  ? 

Explain  it  as  we  may,  this  question  has  actu- 
ally excited  more  earnest  thought,  and  the  an- 
swer to  it  awakened  a  darker  terror,  than  any 
other  inquiry  that  has  ever  engaged  the  human 
mind.  Neither  the  light  of  nature  around  us, 
nor  the  original  revelation  of  God  within,  has 
been  sufficient  to  indicate  a  reply  of  abiding 
peace.  How  inexorable  is  law,  and  how  certain 
the  penalty  of  transgression,  as  revealed  in  na- 
ture !    Throughout  the  natural  world,  no  viola- 


81 


tion  of  law  ever  escapes  its  punisliment.  No 
skill  nor  industry,  no  compromise  nor  subter- 
fuge, can,  in  the  least,  avail  for  a  refuge.  The 
broken  law  vindicates  its  majesty,  and  shows  its 
power,  in  the  exactest  punishment.  Why  may 
it  not  be  thus  also  in  ^  the  spiritual  world  ?  Is 
there  any  thing  in  Nature  to  teach  us  otherwise  ? 
Neither  can  we  gain  any  different  result  from 
the  light  within.  We  know,  from  this  light,  that 
the  penalty  of  the  holy  law.  we  have  broken 
offers  no  escape  without  some  justifying  reason ; 
but  whence  can  such  a  reason  come  ?  Can  we 
furnish  it  ?  Our  repentance  for  the  past,  and 
our  perfect  obedience  for  the  future,  give,  of 
course,  no  justification  of  our  previous  wrong- 
doing ;  but  can  they  give  us  any  hope  of  God's 
forgiveness  ?  Is  it  reasonable  for  him  to  for- 
give sin  because  of  any  thing  which  the  sinner 
can  do  ?  Have  we  any  original  knowledge  of 
him  which  contains  the  probability,  or  even  the 
possibility,  of  this  ?  Certainly,  if  such  a  reason 
exists,  it  must  be  ultimately  in  him.  The  only 
motive  to  himself  must  ever  be  himself  It  can 
never  be,  therefore,  because  of  our  repentance 
or  good  deeds,  that  he  forgives  us,  but  only 
because  he  finds  it  worthy  of  himself  thus  to  do. 
But  who  shall  tell  us  that  it  is  thus  worthy  ?  He 
has  already  told  us  that  sin  is  worthy  of  punish- 


82  LECTURE  IV.  —  NEED  OP  A  DIYINB 

ment.  All  the  light  of  his  holiness  bears  wit- 
ness, in  the  original  insight  of  our  consciences, 
to  this.  When  we  bring  him,  therefore,  our 
oblations,  —  our  penitence  and  prayers  and 
pui^oses  of  obedience,  —  what  evidence  have 
we  that  he  accepts  the  offering,  and  bids  us  go 
in  peace  ?  His  justice  may  never  be  set  aside : 
he  is,  and  must  be,  the  eternally  Just  and  Holy 
One  ;  but  when  the  justice  of  punishment  is  so 
conspicuously  revealed,  how  can  we  discern  the 
justice  of  pardon  ?  How  is  it  possible  for  God 
to  be  just,  while  he  justifies  the  sinner  ? 

I  believe  the  person  who  ponders  this  inquiry 
most  profoundly,  with  no  other  light  than  his 
reason  originally  possesses,  will  hesitate  longest 
before  propounding  any  other  answer  than  that 
which  Nature  constantly  gives  respecting  the 
violation  of  her  laws.  Punishment  is  the  eter- 
nally reasonable  merit  of  sin,  and  God  must  be 
eternally  reasonable.  How,  then,  can  punishment 
fail  ?  Arbitrarily  to  exchange  punishment  for 
pardon  is  unreasonable,  and  thus  impossible  for 
God.  The  exchange,  if  made  at  all,  must  be 
for  a  reason,  all-sufficient  to  himself;  and  what 
can  this  be  but  himself?  Only  for  his  own  sake, 
because  of  his  infinite  excellence  alone,  would 
it  be  right  for  him  to  pardon ;  but  it  is  in  his 
infinite   excellence  that  the  demand  of  punish- 


WOEK  IN  man's  eedemption.  8S 

ment  is  grounded.  He  punishes  for  his  own 
sake,  because  he  abide th  faithful,  and  cannot 
deny  himself  Because  he  is  the  righteous 
Lord,  he  loveth  righteousness,  and  must  ever 
hate  iniquity.  I  venture  to  say,  that,  with  the 
knowledge  which  God  has  already  revealed  to 
us  respecting  punishment,  no  knowledge  of  par- 
don would  be  possible  except  through  some  new 
revelation  from  him.  This  revelation  he  could 
doubtless  make  through  his  spiritual  communi- 
cations directly  to  each  soul,  just  as  he  can 
reveal  the  sunlight  through  the  twilight  of  the 
morning,  before  the  sun  has  appeared ;  but,  if  it 
shall  be  clear  and  full  and  unmistakable,  it  will 
be  given  in  a  sensible  form,  like  the  full  rising  of 
the  sun,  to  which  all  men  can  appeal,  and  in 
which  the  simplest  and  the  feeblest  understand- 
ing, alike  with  the  strongest,  may  find  inspira- 
tion and  hope.  I  believe  you  will  agree  with 
me  in  this,  and  that  here  is  the  basis  of  the  sen- 
timent so  universal,  that  men  need  a  revelation 
from  God  which  their  senses  can  cognize.  More- 
over, if  God  shall  make  known  to  us  a  way  of 
pardon,  it  must  be  seen  to  be  reasonable  in  our 
eyes  as  well  as  in  his ;  otherwise,  we  could  not 
believe  it  to  be  true.  And  as  the  reason  satis- 
factory to  the  Divine  Mind  can  be  nought  other 
than  God  himself;  as  God  must  find  in  himself 


84  LECTUKE  rV.  —  NEED  OF  A  DIVINE 

alone  his  only  and  all-sufficient  reason  for  par- 
don, —  so,  if  pardon  shall  be  revealed  to  man,  the 
reason  for  it  must  be  seen  to  be  wholly  divine. 
It  must  be  altogether  a  divine  gift.  To  rest  it, 
in  any  degree,  upon  any  thing  human  or  finite, 
would  be  unreasonable.  To  suppose  that  par- 
don is  possible,  when  we  see  that  punishment  is 
divine,  would  be  a  mockery  of  God,  and  tantal- 
izing to  man,  unless  we  can  see  that  the  reason 
for  pardon  is  also  and  only  divine.  Whether 
pardon  is  possible  or  not,  we  can  easily  see  that 
our  repentance  cannot  purchase  it,  and  that  the 
hopes  which  ground  it  upon  any  work  or  merit 
of  man  must  be  illusive. 

The  ground  of  pardon  must  be  thus  wholly 
in  God ;  and,  if  it  exist,  it  must  be  perfectly  con- 
sistent with  God's  eternal  right  of  punishment. 
But  that  these  two  can  consist  together  is  at 
first  view  inconceivable  to  man ;  they  seem  in 
exact  contradiction.  How  can  God  pardon, 
unless  he  gives  up  his  right  to  punish  ?  and  how 
can  he  give  up  a  right  which  is  itself  eternal 
and  divine,  and  still  be  God  ?  Oh,  question  of 
all  questions  this !  Men,  in  their  perishing  need, 
have  sought  for  an  answer  of  hope,  but  have 
found  only  despair.  Superficial  souls  may  hide 
theii'  convictions,  and  banish  their  fears,  by 
superficial  observances,  by  their  own  repentance 


WOEK  IN  man's  eedemption.  85 

and  offerings  of  devotion ;  but  over  thoughtful 
minds,  who  recognize  the  futility  of  any  thing 
the  human  or  the  finite  can  do,  and  to  whom 
no  evidence  of  a  divine  work  in  their  behalf 
appears,  there  settles  a  darkness  as  impenetra- 
ble as  it  is  terrible. 

But  what  is  impossible  to  man  is  possible  with 
God.  In  the  Christian  scheme  of  redemption 
the  all-sufficient  answer  appears.  Differing  from 
all  other  answers,  here  God  is  represented  as 
himself  redeeming  man  from  the  punishment 
of  sin. 

The  punishment  is  not  set  aside  without  a  rea- 
son, without  an  all-sufficient  reason  ;  for  God  him- 
self appears,  and  offers  himself,  in  his  all-perfect 
work,  as  the  justifying  reason  for  it.  The  Eternal 
Reason  or  Word,  which  was  in  the  beginning 
with  God,  and  which  was  God,  became  flesh,  and 
dwelt  among  men.  He  enters  the  nature  which 
had  sinned.  He  becomes  a  living  event  in  the 
history  of  the  fallen  race.  He  is  a  true  man,  and 
reveals  the  original  capabilities  of  human  nature 
in  all  their  perfection.  He  is  among  men,  and 
brings  to  light,  by  his  witnessing  presence,  their 
infirmity  and  guilt.  But  he  is  God  with  men, 
truly  human  and  truly  divine.  In  him  dwelt 
all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  This 
fulness  he  sought  to  give  to  needy  souls.     He 


SQ  LECTUKE  IV.  —  NEED  OF  A  DIVINE 

luimblecl  himself  that  he  might  exalt  them.  lie 
who  was  rich  became  poor,  that  we,  through  his 
poverty,  might  become  rich.  He  became  obe- 
dient unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross, 
that  he  might  save  us  from  the  curse  of  our  dis- 
obedience, and  procure  for  us  eternal  life.  The 
obedience  was  freely  rendered.  The  life  which 
he  offered  was  altogether  his  own.  "  No  man 
taketh  it  from  me,"  he  says ;  '^  but  I  lay  it  down  of 
myself.  I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I  'have 
power  to  take  it  again."  Was  the  law  of  love 
ever  glorified  as  in  the  perfect  obedience  of  this 
perfect  man,  in  his  life  and  death  of  love  ?  What 
an  attractive  power  in  this  obedience !  what  a 
mighty  influence  it  is  fitted  to  have  upon  selfish 
hearts,  wherever  it  could  be  made  known,  — 
drawing  them  from  their  selfishness  to  love  1 

But  what  has  this  to  do  with  pardon?  Ref- 
ormation of  life  will  not  remove  the  defilement 
of  guilt  already  incurred.  We  need  something 
more  than  new  incentives  to  obedience,  however 
desirable  these  may  be.  Moreover  these,  how- 
ever mighty,  would  be  powerless  to  move  us  to 
action,  unless  there  were  something  also  to  in- 
spire us  with  the  hope  of  pardon.  Does  the  per- 
fect obedience  of  Jesus  Christ  give  us  any  such 
hope  ?  Does  the  offering  of  his  life  in  the  sacri- 
fice  of   a  perfect   self-abnegation,    wherein   he 


"WORK  IN  man's  redemption.  87 

fulfilled   the  divinest   requirement,  furnish    any 
ground  for  pardon? 

Remember  that  Jesus  Christ,  as  truly  man  as 
any  one  of  us,  bone  of  our  bone  and  flesh  of  our 
flesh,  is  also  truly  God  over  all,  blessed  forever, 
the  eternal  Creator  and  Ruler  of  all  things.  It 
is  a  divine  obedience,  therefore,  which  we  have  to 
contemplate  here.  He  who  became  thus  obedi- 
ent to  the  perfect  law  is  himself  the  almighty 
Sovereign.  It  was  his  right  to  reign.  It  be- 
hooved him  to  be  Lawgiver  and  Lord  through  all 
his  worlds.  In  the  perfection  of  his  sovereignty 
over  his  creatures  was  their  perfection  and  bless- 
edness. The  river  of  the  water  of  their  life  could 
proceed,  clear  as  crystal,  only  from  his  throne. 
When  he  becomes  a  subject,  therefore,  though  it 
is  a  human  obedience  which  is  rendered,  it  is  also 
infinitely  more  than  this.  It  has  a  divine  signifi- 
cance and  worth  and  glory.  It  possesses  a  merit 
thus  which  no  finite  obedience  could  possess.  In 
the  offering  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  completest  self- 
abnegation,  there  is  revealed  to  us  a  divine  offer- 
ing, a  divine  sacrifice,  which  divine  justice  may 
not  have  required,  but  which  divine  love  is  all 
able  to  accomplish.  Justice  may  not  have  re- 
quired it,  but  what  may  not  it  require  of  justice  ? 
When  we  say  that  the  offering  is  divine,  have  we 
any  other  terms  wherein  to  measure  its   merit 


88  LECTURE  lY.  —  NEED   OF   A  DIVINE 

than  to  say  that  it  is  exhaustless  ?  And  when 
the  Son  of  God,  having  finished  his  work,  and 
come  off  as  a  conqueror,  and  more  than  a  con- 
queror, demands  the  pardon  of  sin,  — ■  demands 
it  of  justice,  —  is  this  any  thing  more  than  justice 
must  grant  ?  In  the  immeasurable  merits  of  his 
priceless  obedience  and  self-sacrifice,  God  can  be 
just,  and  yet  justify  the  believer  in  Jesus.  For 
his  own  sake  thus  he  pardons,  even  as  it  is  for 
his  own  sake  he  punishes.  In  the  inscrutable 
mystery  of  his  wisdom,  and  in  the  infinite  all- 
sufficiency  of  his  love,  he  has  revealed  to  us  a 
divine  harmony  of  grace  and  justice,  wherein 
mercy  and  truth  have  met  together,  and  right- 
eousness and  peace  have  kissed  each  other. 

You  ask  me,  gentlemen,  for  the  proof  of  all 
this,  —  a  proper  inquiry  ;  but  before  answering  it, 
let  me  remind  you,  that,  if  it  is  true,  it  is  not  only 
an  all-perfect  provision  for  pardon,  but  it  is  the 
only  perfect  provision  that  has  ever  been  pro- 
posed. Examine  other  religions,  and,  at  the  best, 
they  ofier  only  some  finite  ground  as  the  reason 
of  pardon.  At  the  best,  it  is  only  the  merits  of 
men  which  they  propose  as  the  means  of  obtain- 
ing the  divine  favor.  If  they  ever  present  us, 
as  some  of  them  do,  with  theories  and  histories 
of  divine  incarnations,  they  never  hold  up  these 
as  the  meritorious  ground  of  pa]'don.     Repent- 


89 


ance,  sacrifices,  good  works  of  men,  are  all  that 
any  of  these  religions  offer  as  the  object  of  faith 
or  the  ground  of  hope ;  but  for  the  sake  of 
these,  can  it  be  expected  that  God  will  remit 
punishment  and  pardon  sin  ?  What  are  these,  at 
the  best,  when  judged  by  infinite  righteousness  ? 
At  the  best,  do  they  reach  farther  than  duty  ? 
Are  they  more  than  ought  to  be  done  ?  What 
reason,  therefore,  can  they  offer  why  failures  in 
duty  should  be  forgiven  ?  There  is  not  one  of 
these  systems  of  religion  which  will  bear  the 
scrutiny  of 'an  honest  thought.  There  is  not  a 
believer  in  one  of  them  who  does  not  convict 
himself  of  a  groundless  faith  the  moment  it  is 
examined.  But  whether  Christianity  be  actually 
true  or  not,  you  must  acknowledge  that  its  pro- 
vision of  pardon  is  ideally  perfect  ;  its  ground 
for  forgiving  sin  accords  with  perfect  righteous- 
ness; it  meets  all  the  requirements  of  justice, 
and  all  the  needs  of  man;  and,  among  all  the 
religions  of  the  world,  it  is  the  only  one  not 
defective  on  both  these  points. 

That  the  Christian  religion  is  actually  true,  as 
well  as  ideally  perfect,  has  one  grand  proof 
The  resurrection  of  Jesus  Christ  from  the  dead 
is  the  irrefragable  confirmation  of  all  that  he 
taught  and  suffered.  He  came  as  a  Saviour. 
The  Son  of  man  is  come,  he  said,  to  seek  and  to 

8* 


90  LECTUHE   IV.  —  NEED  OF  A  DIVINE 

save  that  which  was  lost.  He  had  declared  that 
the  life  which  he  ofiPered  up  was  given  as  a  ran- 
som or  redemption  for  men  (Matt.  xx.  28). 
Through  the  shedding  of  his  blood,  he  had 
taught  his  disciples,  was  to  come  the  remission 
of  sins  (Matt.  xxvi.  28).  He  had  claimed,  that, 
to  himself,  belonged  upon  earth  the  power  to 
forgive  sin,  a  power  acknowledged  as  belonging 
to  God  alone  (Luke  v.  20-26).  He  had  repeat- 
edly declared  that  eternal  life  for  men  came 
through  him,  and  through  him  alone  (John  iii. 
4-18;  V.  21-24;  vi.  40-47).  These  claims  are 
attested  and  made  valid  for  men  everywhere,  in 
all  ages,  through  his  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
If  he  actually  died  upon  the  cross,  and  was 
buried,  and  rose  again  from  the  tomb,  as  is 
claimed,  this  is  a  divine  seal  upon  his  work, 
Tvhich  manifests  its  all-sufi5ciency  in  the  divine 
eye,  and  which  enables  it  to  be  proclaimed  as 
glad-tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  people.  The 
central  evidence  of  the  Christian  system  is  pre- 
cisely here.  Wise  as  are  the  words'  of  Christ, 
mighty  as  are  his  works,  grand  as  his  life  seems, 
and  sublime  as  was  his  death,  the  all-sufficient 
evidence  that  he  is  the  true  Redeemer  and  Life 
of  the  world,  through  whom  and  through  whom 
alone  forgiveness  of  sins  can  be  obtained,  fails 
without  his  resurrection.     The  ultimate  proof  of 


WORK  IN  MAJ^r'S  EEDElSrPTION'.  ^1 

it  all  hinges  here.  This  is  the  central  and  cardi- 
nal doctrine  of  the  Christian  faith,  without  which 
there  is  no  such  faith.  If  Christ  be  not  risen, 
said  Paul,  then  is  our  preaching  vain  (1  Cor.  xv.). 
I  cease,  gentlemen,  all  my  solicitations  that  you 
accept  Jesus  as  your  Lord  and  Saviour,  unless 
it  be  literally  true  that  he  rose  from  the  dead ; 
but  if  this  be  true,  then  the  Christian  religion 
stands  before  you,  not  at  all  as  a  suppliant,  im- 
ploring your  assent,  but  as  a  sovereign  which 
commands  the  allegiance  of  the  world,  and  must 
compel  it  also. 

The  historical  evidence  for  this  fact  is  singu- 
larly convincing.  I  believe  that  any  one  who 
studies  it  for  the  first  time  will  be  surprised  at  its 
fulness  and  clearness.  The  disciples  of  Christ 
were  not  expecting  any  such  event.  What  he 
had  told  them  beforehand  respecting  his  death 
and  resurrection  they  had  either  imperfectly  un- 
derstood, or  had  wholly  perverted.  They  were 
saturated  with  the  prevailing  Jewish  notion,  that 
the  Messiah,  or  Christ,  when  he  came,  should  be 
a  temporal  prince,  actually  and  visibly  restoring 
the  kingdom  of  David.  They  were  not  pre- 
pared for  his  death,  much  less  for  his  resurrec- 
tion. The  first  announcement  that  he  had 
actually  risen  seemed  like  an  idle  tale  to  the 
disciples,  and  they  believed  it  not  (Luke  xxiv. 


92  LECTURE  lY. — ITEED   OF  A  DIVTNE 

11).  After  he  had  really  appeared  to  them,  and 
they  with  united  voice  had  told  the  fact  to  one 
of  their- number  not  present  at  the  time,  so  in- 
credulous was  he,  that  he  declared  he  could  not 
believe  it  without  the  most  indubitable  proof  to 
his  own  senses.  "  Except  I  shall  see  in  his  hands 
the  print  of  the  nails,  and  put  my  finger  into  the 
print  of  the  nails,  and  thrust  my  hand  into  his 
side,  I  will  not  believe  "  (John  xx.  25).  These 
doubts  of  the  disciples  are  very  significant  to  us. 
They  prevent  our  doubts.  They  show  us  that 
the  important  fact  we  are  summoned  to  believe 
was  sufficiently  scrutinized  by  those  most  compe- 
tent to  judge  of  its  truth. 

Notwithstanding  these  obstinate  doubts,  the 
disciples  all  became  convinced.  They  received 
such  palpable  proof  that  their  Master  had  risen 
from  the  dead,  that  every  doubt  was  dispelled. 
Then  followed  a  most  wonderful  revolution  in 
their  views  respecting  him,  and  in  the  whole 
procedure  of  their  life.  Few  and  feeble  as  they 
were,  and  cast  down  through  his  death,  they  re- 
ceived in  the  forty  days  after  his  death  a  hope 
and  courage  and  strength  with  which  they  faced 
the  world,  whose  submission  they  demanded  to 
their  Lord.  They  rose  now  to  a  new  view  of 
his  kingdom.  They  entered  into  the  meaning 
of  his  death.     They  saw  the  fulness  and  power 


WOEK  m  mail's  eedemption.  93 

and  glory  of  his  redemption ;  and  they  preached 
repentance,  and  remission  of  sins  through  his 
name.  This  revolution  in  their  thoughts  and  life 
they  ascribe  to  the  evidence  they  had  received 
of  Christ's  resurrection,  through  which  they  de- 
clare they  do  not  hesitate  to  preach  him  as  the 
Saviour  of  the  world  (Acts  ii.  24-32,  iii., 
iv.  8-13,  X.,  xiii. ;  Eom.  x.  9 ;  1  Cor.  xv.  5- 
20 ;   1  Pet.  i.  21). 

Now,  that  the  disciples  can  have  been  mis- 
taken respecting  so  palpable  a  fact  is  both 
incredible  and  inconceivable.  They  knew  well 
the  personal  appearance  of  Jesus,  and  could  not 
have  been  imposed  upon  by  any  false  represen- 
tations, even  if  we  could  conceive  of  such  having 
been  attempted.  Nothing  surely  could  have 
made  them  believe  that  they  had  seen  and  felt 
and  handled  the  living  body  of  their  Master  after 
his  death ;  that  they  had  heard  his  voice,  and 
that  he  had  eaten  before  them,  to  convince  them 
that  they  saw  not  a  mere  shadowy  representation 
of  him;  and  that  these  appearances  had  been 
given  at  different  times  to  numbers  of  men  and 
women,  singly  and  collectively,  —  unless  there 
was  a  reality  in  the  resurrection  which  put  it  be- 
yond a  doubt.  They  were  not  easily  convinced, 
as  we  have  seen;  and,  if  they  really  believed 
what  they  so  unanimously  came  to  afiSrm,  it  can 


94  LECTURE  IV.  —  NEED  OF  A   DIVINE 

only  have  been  because  their  affirmations  were 
true. 

Did  they  not  believe  it  ?  They  could  not  have 
been  deceived  themselves ;  but  did  they  try  to 
deceive  the  world  ?  This  is  equally  incredible. 
For  what  motive  to  such  a  course  ?  What  hope 
could  they  have  of  success  ?  Was  not  the  sepul- 
chre in  which  the  dead  body  of  Jesus  was  laid, 
sealed,  and  a  Roman  guard  set  to  watch  it  ?  and 
could  not  the  story  of  his  resurrection  be  falsified 
in  a  moment  if  it  was  not  true  ?  Were  not  the 
Jews  who  had  plotted  his  death,  and  the  Romans 
who  had  permitted  it,  ready  enough  to  dispute 
such  a  fact  unless  it  had  been  indisputable  ?  But 
the  disciples  declare  it  everywhere.  They  make 
it  the  basis  of  their  preaching.  They  hold  it  up 
as  the  irrefutable  evidence  of  their  doctrine,  in 
the  very  city  where  the  event  is  declared  to 
have  taken  place,  and  among  the  people  who 
had  every  opportunity  to  test  the  fact,  and  from 
whom  innumerable  witnesses  could  have  proved 
its  falsity  if  it  had  not  been  true.  And  the 
•  proof  is  clear  beyond  all  denial,  that  the  resur- 
rection of  Christ  was  believed  in  Jerusalem 
itself,  by  thousands  who  had  seen  his  crucifixion, 
and  who,  by  the  irresistible  evidence  of  his 
resurrection,  were  led  to  believe  in  him  as  their 
divine  Lord  and  only  Saviour. 


WORK  IN  man's  eedemption.  95 

Moreover,  the  disciples  gave  every  evidence 
of  being  credible  men.  They  speak  soberly,  as 
of  the  things  which  they  have  both  seen  and 
heard.  They  are  not  men  likely  to  be  led  away 
by  their  fancies.  They  are  plain,  matter-of-fact, 
though  so  earnest  men.  They  give  every  ap- 
pearance of  truthfulness.  They  are  evidently  seek- 
ing no  selfish  end.  Their  whole  life,  after  they 
have  begun  to  preach  the  resurrection,  shows  the 
highest  forgetfulness  of  self,  and  an  absorbing  de- 
votion to  the  good  of  others.  When  Christ  was 
apprehended  they  were  terror-stricken,  and  they 
all  forsook  him  and  fled.  When  he  was  put  to 
death  they  were  dismayed.  But  there  was  never 
a  bolder  set  of  men  than  these  same  timid 
disciples,  after  they  began  to  speak  of  their 
Master's  resurrection.  In  defence  of  this  doc- 
trine they  met  opposition  and  persecution,  and 
faced  death  itself  without  shrinking.  They  laid 
down  their  lives,  rather  than  give  up  the  doctrine 
which  they  preached.  There  is  no  explanation 
of  their  conduct  unless  their  doctrine  was  trae. 

The  historical  truth  of  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  has  never  been  impugned.  The  witnesses 
for  it  are  sufficiently  numerous  and  sufficiently 
credible  to  compel  any  candid  assent.  It  fal- 
sifies every  element  of  human  nature,  and  con- 
tradicts every  principle   of  historical  criticism, 


96  LECTUKE  IV.  —  NEED   OF  A  DIVINE 

to  suppose  that  the  disciples  were  either  deceiv- 
ers or  deceived.  The  statements  and  the  con- 
duct of  these  men  render  each  of  these  supposi- 
tions equally  impossible.  The  doctrine  which 
they  taught  must  be  true ;  and  therefore  God's 
seal  is  set  to  the  great  truth  of  Christ's  redemp- 
tion, who  was  truly  delivered  for  our  offences, 
and  raised  again  for  our  justification,  and  who 
is  the  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours 
only,  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world. 

Gentlemen,  there  can  be  but  one  living  and 
true  God,  the  Creator  and  Ruler  of  all  things. 
It  is  against  him  that  the  whole  hurrian  family 
have  sinned.  By  his  original  communications 
to  every  soul,  he  has  revealed  the  fact  of  sin 
and  of  punishment.  All  races  of  men,  in  every 
age,  bear  true  and  terrible  witness  to  this.  If, 
in  these  original  communications,  there  is  also 
seen  any  way  of  relief  from  sin  and  its  just 
doom,  you  will  acknowledge,  that,  at  the  best,  the 
vision  is  exceedingly  faint,  and  the  wide-reaching 
conviction  that  it  needs  to  be  enlarged  by  an  ad- 
ditional revelation  testifies  to  its  inadequacy ;  but 
if  in  any  soul  there  be  any  sense,  however  faint, 
that  God  can  forgive  sin,  it  is  clear  that .  he  can 
do  this  only  for  his  own  sake.  The  reason  for 
forgiveness  must  be  satisfactory  to  himself,  and 
can  be  thus  only  himself.     The  way  of  pardon 


WOEK  IN  man's  eedemption.  97 

can  be  only  tlie  one  wliicli  he  provides;  and 
this  implies  that  there  can  be  only  one  such  way. 
God's  method  must  be  the  best,  and  thus,  single. 
If  he  forgives  and  purifies  in  any  case,  it  must 
be  for  the  same  reason  that  he  would  in  every 
case.  Diversities  of  religion,  different  ways  of 
pardon  and  of  a  divine  fellowship,  are  intrinsi- 
cally impossible.  It  is  as  absurd  to  suppose 
that  there  can  be  different  religions,  equally 
valid,  as  that  there  could  be  different  sciences 
equally  true.  Science,  so  far  as  it  relates  to  the 
same  facts,  is  single.  To  suppose  that  different 
people  have  different  sciences  of  the  same  ob- 
jects is  to  suppose  that  some  of  them  at  least 
are  holding  to  sciences  falsely  so  called.  What 
would  you  say  of  me  if  I  should  hold  up  a  sys- 
tem of  mathematics  as  suitable  for  me  and  my 
race,  but  having  no  significance  for  you?  Would 
you  not  tell  me  that  any  science  is  worthless  for 
one  unless  it  be  valid  for  all  ?  And  what  shall 
I  say  of  you  if  you  turn  aside  from  Christianity 
as  being  well  enough  for  Christians,  while  you 
cling  to  your  Hinduism  as  the  religion  sepa- 
rately adapted  to  you  ?  Does  not  the  fact  that 
you  talk  of  this  religion  as  yours,  and  as  sepa- 
rately adapted  to  the  Hindus,  show  that  it  is 
not  adapted  even  to  yourselves,  and  that  you 
yourselves   have  no  profound  conviction  of  its 


98  LECTURE  IV.  —  NEED    OF  A  DIVINB 

truth  ?  You  make  no  effort  to  propagate  your 
faith.  You  send  no  missionaries  abroad.  You 
do  not  believe  that  your  religion  has  any  appli- 
cation to  any  other  portion  of  the  human  family 
than  your  own.  Therefore,  I  say,  you  have  no 
right  to  believe  that  it  has  any  beneficent  appli- 
cation to  yourselves;  and,  in  your  heart  of  hearts,' 
you  do  not  and  can  not  believe  it.  The  very  fact, 
that,  as  a  religion,  it  is  not  fitted  for  all,  proves 
that  it  is  not  fitted  for  any.  I  call  upon  you  to 
accept  a  religion  which  has  no  narrow  claims. 
The  Christian  religion  does  not  admit  for  itself 
any  limited  application.  It  demands  universal 
acceptance.  It  does  not  allow  that  its  method 
of  salvation  is  one  out  of  a  number  from  which 
men  may  safely  choose.  It  claims  to  be  the  only 
way.  It  holds  itself  up  unfalteringly  as  the  re- 
ligion for  every  nation  and  every  soul.  Its  ideal 
position  is  perfect.  It  offers  pardon,  not  upon 
partial  or  finite  grounds,  but  through  a  provision 
of  which  God  himself  is  the  all-sufficient  author 
and  finisher.  That  the  perfect  obedience  of  the 
Son  of  God  to  the  broken  law,  accomplished  in 
the  incarnation  and  life  and  death  of  Jesus 
Christ,  opens  a  way  for  pardon  acceptable  to 
God,  is  put  beyond  a  question  through  Christ's 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  Here  is  a  religion, 
therefore,  which  has  all  the  elements  of  univer- 


WOEK  m  man's  redemption.  99 

sality  and  perpetuity.  Do  you  wonder  that  it 
does  not  decay,  nor  grow  old  nor  weak  nor 
weary  ?  Do  you  wonder  that  it  goes  on,  steadily 
subduing  the  nations?  Do  you  wonder  that 
you  are  called  upon  to  accept  this  faith,  and 
yield  your  wills  to  Jesus  Christ  as  your  Lord 
and  Saviour? 


MIEACLES. 


I  TAKE  up  this  book  whicli  we  call  the  Bible; 
and,  whether  or  not  I  acknowledge  its  truth,  I  must 
at  least  confess  its  power.  No  other  book  has 
moved  the  world  as  this  has  done.  I  inquire  into 
the  secret  of  this,  to  discover  which  I  am  obliged 
to  open  the  book  to  see  what  it  contains  ;  and  I 
find  in  it  really  but  one  thought,  — ^  a  thought, 
indeed,  of  incomparable  grandeur  and  of  innu- 
merable relations,  but  which,  itself,  is  as  single 
as  it  is  sublime.  All  through  the  Bible,  I  dis- 
cover only  what  is  involved  in  the  great  thought 
of  redemption.  Man's  need  of  redemption,  and 
God's  copious  provision  for  it,  furnish  the  won- 
derful theme  of  this  wonderful  book. 

Somehow  or  other,  the  Bible  has  convinced 
men  that  this  thought  is  true  ;  and  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  here  is  the  secret  of  its  otherwise 
inexplicable  power.  Men  have  been  persuaded 
that  an  all-sufficient  redemption  has  been  fi:eely 

100 


MIEACLES.  101 

provided  by  a  sovereign  and  gracious  act  of  God 
himself;  and  the  book  which  contains  this  an- 
nouncement, and  furnishes  the  evidence  of  its 
truth,  is,  therefore,  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  unto 
all  people  who  receive  it.  Men  prize  it,  and  em- 
brace it,  and  mould  their  lives  according  to  its 
precepts,  because  convinced  that  its  story  of 
redeeming  love  is  true. 

What  has  wrought  this  conviction  ?  There 
are  two  ways  in  which  we  become  convinced  of 
the  truth  of  any  thing,  and  only  two.  In  one, 
our  minds  behold  the  truth  in  its  own  light. 
The  truth  is  then  self-evident,  and  convinces  us 
by  the  simple  manifestation  of  itself.  We  ex- 
press this  conviction  when  we  say  that  we  know 
a  statement  to  be  true.  Knowledge  is  this  im- 
mediate beholding  of  the  truth ;  and,  when  we 
profess  it,  we  rest  in  it  with  an  unshaken  con- 
viction. 

But  there  are  many  truths  of  which  we  are 
convinced,  but  which  we  do  not  thus  immediate- 
ly see,  and  which  we  cannot  be  thus  said  to  know. 
We  are  convinced  that  there  is  such  a  city  as 
Peking,  though  we  perhaps  never  saw  it ;  we 
have  no  doubt  that  water  is  composed  of  oxygen 
and  hydrogen,  though  quite  likely  we  never 
made  the  experiment,  and  saw  the  truth  for  our- 
selves;   we  are  confident  that   the   differential 

9* 


102  MIRACLES. 

calculus  has  solved  vast  and  intricate  questions 
in  science,  and  that  the  method  of  quaternions 
is  able  to  solve  many  more,  though  very  possi- 
bly not  one  of  these  problems  has  ever  been 
worked  out  by  ourselves.  These  truths  we  ac- 
cept, not  because  we  behold  them  in  their  own 
light,  but  because  they  are  affirmed  by  the  com- 
petent testimony  of  those  who  have  thus  beheld 
them.  We  express  this  conviction  when  we  say 
that  we  believe  a  statement  to  be  true. 

Knowledge  and  belief  do  not  differ  in  that 
the  one  is  a  stronger  conviction  than  the  other. 
The  conviction  may  be  just  as  strong  of  the  truth 
we  believe  as  of  that  which  we  know.  We  may 
be  no  less  certain  of  the  existence  of  Peking, 
which  we,  perhaps,  never  saw,  than  we  are  of 
the  existence  of  Boston,  which  we,  perhaps,  see 
every  day.  The  difference  does  not  relate  at  all 
to  the  strength  of  the  conviction,  but  wholly  to 
the  kind  of  evidence  on  which  the  conviction 
rests.  In  knowledge,  this  evidence  is  the  light 
of  the  truth  itself  as  it  becomes  directly  disclosed 
to  the  mind  ;  in  belief,  the  evidence  is  the  testi- 
mony of  another. 

A  belief  may  become  changed  into  knowl- 
edge. I  may  believe  certain  truths  of  science 
because  scientific  men  relate  them,  and  I  may 
come   to   know  these  same  truths  through  my 


MIEACLES.  103 

own  experiment  or  demonstration.  The  linman 
mind  has  ever  an  impulse  to  know  that  in  which 
it  has  believed.  The  belief  is  the  stepping- 
stone  and  the  constant  stimulus  to  the  increasing 
knowledge. 

In  like  manner,  the  knowledge  becomes  the 
ground-work  of  a  growing  faith.  The  finite 
mind  can  never  know  all  things.  Though  the 
sphere  of  its  knowledge  be  constantly  enlarging, 
the  sphere  of  the  unknown  appears  to  grow  in 
an  equal  degree ;  as,  with  a  candle  in  a  dark 
place,  the  farther  the  light  reaches,  the  greater 
the  surrounding  darkness  seems.  There  will  be 
always,  therefore,  something  for  us  to  believe. 
We  shall  always  need  a  voice  to  come  to  us  out 
of  the  darkness,  and  tell  us  of  the  unknown. 

Knowledge  and  belief  may  be  indefinitely 
blended ;  but  they  are  the  basis  of  all  our  con- 
victions. When,  therefore,  the  Bible  convinces 
us  of  its  truth,  it  must  be,  either  because  the 
truth  is  known  by  us  in  its  own  light,  or  because 
we  believe  it  on  the  testimony  which  declares  it. 
Now,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  find  that  the  con- 
viction which  the  Bible  does  induce  is  a  belief 
in  its  truth.  It  does  not  come  before  us,  like  a 
book  of  geometry,  with  its  theorems  all  demon- 
strated, so  that  every  principle  which  it  utters 
may  be  revealed  in  its  own  light  to  our  knowl- 


104  MIEACLES. 

edge  ;  but  it  is  chiefly  a  system  of  faith.  It  ap- 
peals to  oiir  belief  Its  prime  evidence  is  the 
testimony  of  another. 

But  what  sort  of  testimony  is  necessary  to 
secure  our  belief?  When  one  affirms  to  us  a 
statement  which  is  beyond  our  knowledge,  we 
believe  it  just  as  far,  and  just  as  strongly,  as 
we  know  that  he  who  affirms  it  is  too  wise  to 
be  mistaken,  and  too  honest  to  deceive.  If  we 
know  the  perfect  wisdom  and  perfect  truthful- 
ness of  a  person,  we  believe  his  word  with  as 
strong  a  conviction  as  that  of  any  knowledge. 
The  belief  always  implies  some  sort  of  knowledge 
to  rest  upon,  —  some  acquaintance  with  the  truth 
declared,  or  with  him  by  whom  it  is  declared; 
but  it  conveys  to  us  truths  which  our  knowledge 
at  the  time  when  we  received  them  has  no  means 
of  reaching. 

Now,  the  knowledge  of  God  is  the  primal  and 
constant  knowledge  of  any  soul.  "  To  know 
God,"  says  Jacobi,  "  and  to  possess  reason,  are 
one  and  the  same  thing,  — just  as  not  to  know 
God,  and  be  a  brute,  are  the  same  thing."  This 
knowledge  may  be  vague  and  indefinite  and  ob- 
scure in  many  instances ;  yet,  in  every  instance, 
is  it  the  original  possession  and  inalienable  sub- 
stance of  the  human  mind:  so  that,  as  Cicero 
says,  "  There  is  no  one  of  all  men  so  savage,  that 


MIRACLES.  105 

his  mind  is  not  tinctured  by  it ;  "  and,  as  tlie  Jew 
P'liilo  says,  "  He  who  possesses  this  knowledge  is 
a  man,  and  he  who  is  destitute  of  it  is  no  man." 

We  know  that  God  is,  and  that  he  is  all- wise, 
and  cannot  lie;  and  the  Bible  assumes  this 
knowledge,  and  rests  all  its  statements  upon  it, 
expecting  us  to  receive  them  because  they  come 
from  God,  whom  we  know  to  be  so  wise  that  he 
cannot  be  mistaken,  and  so  truthful  that  he  will 
never  deceive.  Of  course,  if  this  foundation  is 
secure,  whatever  is  built  upon  it  must  surely 
stand.  If  we  can  only  be  convinced  that  God 
has  spoken  to  us,  we  can  no  more  doubt  the 
word  thus  spoken  than  could  the  earth  have 
maintained  its  formlessness  and  darkness  when 
the  Spirit  of  God  brooded  over  the  abyss,  and 
God  said,  "  Let  there  be  light." 

The  whole  question,  therefore,  hinges  exactly 
here :  What  is  the  evidence  that  God  has 
spoken  ?  How  shall  we  be  convinced  that  the 
Bible  is  his  word  ?  The  question  is  not,  "  How 
shall  God  flash  conviction  upon  the  mind  by 
some  self-evidencing  statement  ?  "  but,  "  How 
shall  he  reveal  his  own  testimony  to  the  truth  ? 
Manifestly,  this  can  only  be  through  some 
directly  spiritual  and  internal  communication,  or 
through  some  outward  and  sensible  disclosure  of 
God's  presence.     But   a   communication  wholly 


106  MraACLES. 

internal,  while  it  might  be  sufficient  for  the  per- 
son  to  whom  it  is  immediately  given,  would 
have  no  power  to  convince  another,  and  would 
be  liable  to  the  same  difficulties  as  attach  to  a 
conviction  secured  through  external  and  sensible 
means.  These,  therefore,  must  be  the  methods 
employed.  If  God  shall  ever  seek  to  convince 
us  of  the  truth  by  his  testimony  to  it,  he  will 
manifest  his  testimony  in  a  way  which  the  bodily 
senses  can  perceive.  But  this  is  only  to  say  that 
he  will  do  it  by  miracles ;  for  a  miracle  is  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  a  manifestation,  through 
the  senses,  of  God's  testimony  to  the  truth.  A 
miracle  is  a  sensible  event,  wrought  by  God  in 
attestation  of  the  truth.  It,  therefore,  must 
occur  in  Nature,  and  require  for  its  production 
that  which  Nature  does  not  possess.  It  must 
occur  in  Nature,  otherwise  it  would  not  be 
apprehensible  to  our  senses ;  and  it  must,  at  the 
same  time,  be  beyond  the  power  of  Nature  to 
produce,  otherwise  it  would  not  disclose  an 
agency  which  belongs  to  the  Author  of  Nature 
alone.  A  miracle  is  not  simply  an  extraordinary 
event,  like  an  eclipse  or  an  earthquake,  which, 
however  unfrequent,  occurs  through  the  regular 
action  of  the  same  forces  that  produce  the  ordi- 
nary events  in  Nature,  and  which  might  be  fore- 
known by  one  acquainted  with  its  cause ;  but  it 


MIRACLES.  107 

is  ai3  event  which  Nature,  by  its  own  action, 
never  would  have  brought  forth,  and  for  which 
the  power  of  God  alone  is  adequate.  It  is  no 
new  birth  from  Nature's  teeming  womb,  but  a 
new  beginning,  which  rises  at  once  from  an 
almighty  fiat.  It  is  not  a  development,  but  a 
creation.  It  is  an  absolutely  new  force  intro- 
duced into  Nature,  by  which  Nature  is  checked 
and  changed.  The  simplest  definition  we  can 
give,  therefore,  of  a  miracle,  is  a  counteraction 
of  Nature  by  the  Author  of  Nature. 

Whether  such  counteractions  have  ever  been 
wrought ;  whether  this  vast  and  intricate  mech- 
anism, the  exquisite  adjustments  and  delicate 
interdependence  of  all  whose  parts  fill  us  with 
unceasing  wonder,  has  ever  been  changed  in 
any  of  its  workings  by  a  power  outside  itself,  — 
is  the  grave  and  dif&cult  question  we  must  next 
consider. 

In  seeking  the  answer  to  this  inquiry,  let  us 
ask,  in  the  first  place,  whether  there  can  be  a 
suf&cient  occasion  for  such  an  interference  with 
Nature  as  a  miracle  implies.  Is  such  an  inter- 
ference needed  to  give  us  any  further  knowl- 
edge of  God  than  Nature  discloses?  Are  not 
the  invisible  things  of  him,  from  the  creation  of 
the  world,  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the 
things  that  are  made,  so  that  men  are  without 


108  MIRACLES. 

excuse  ?  and  do  we  need  any  thing  more  ?  We 
need  nothing  more,  certainly,  to  convince  us  of 
our  obligation  and  resi3onsibility ;  for  such  a 
conviction  all  men  possess.  But,  in  the  actual 
condition  of  human  nature,  what  a  terrible  con- 
viction this  is !  To  know  that  we  ought  to  do 
right,  and  that  we  have  done  wrong,  and  that 
we  are  responsible  for  this  to  a  tribunal  of  infi- 
nite justice,  is  a  knowledge  in  which  the  human 
soul  has  found  an  irrepressible  and  yet  unutter- 
able agony.  If  we  fancy  that  this  is  the  result 
of  some  dreadful  delusion,  and  would  disappear 
if  all  men  could  only  come  to  see  that  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  unmixed  ill,  and  that  "  evil  is 
only  good  in  the  making ;  "  and  that  their  so- 
called  sin  is  only  a  phase  of  their  imperfect  de- 
velopment, which  advancing  thought  and  culture 
are  sufficient  to  remove,  —  we  must  at  least  ad- 
mit that  such  a  fancy  contradicts  the  deepest  and 
most  universal  convictions  of  mankind,  which  we 
may  well  be  hopeless  of  attempting  in  any  such 
way  to  eradicate.  The  conviction  of  sin  as  a 
dark  and  terrible  reality  occupies  a  place  in  the 
actual  human  experience,  of  which  it  refuses  to 
be  dispossessed  by  any  process  of  argument. 
The  difference  between  suffering  wrong  and  do- 
ing wrong,  between  the  regret  for  what  another 
has  done  to  us  and  the  remorse  for  what  we  our- 


MIRACLES.  109 

selves  have  done,  is  a  difference  which  no  dia* 
lectics  can  make  to  disappear,  and  which  the 
common  consciousness  of  mankind  recognizes  as 
a  gulf  broad  and  impassable  forever.  No  sub- 
tle discriminations  .  nor  attempted  subterfuges 
have  long  cloaked  or  crowded  down  this  convic- 
tion; but  it  has  disclosed  itself,  through  every 
contrivance  to  conceal  it,  as  the  deepest  source 
of  woe  which  the  human  soul  possesses.  No 
torture  of  the  rack  or  the  stake  has  equalled 
the  agony  which  men  have  actually  experienced 
froni  the  consciousness  of  sin. 

This  suffering  can  only  be  removed  by  removing 
the  sin  in  which  it  has  its  source.  But  how  is  this 
possible  ?  To  stop  sinning  causes  neither  the  sin 
nor  the  suffering  to  cease.  It  is  not  simply  a  the- 
ory of  human  nature  which  justifies  this  assertion, 
but  the  actual  facts  of  human  experience,  —  the 
darkest,  saddest,  and  yet  the  most  undeniable 
facts  of  our  history.  It  is  a  simple  truth  of  com- 
mon experience,  that  a  soul  conscious  of  its 
transgressions  does  not  lose  that  consciousness 
by  any  act  of  subsequent  obedience.  The  con- 
sciousness of  sin,  however  vaguely  it  may  appear 
in  some  minds,  always  discloses  a  violated  divine 
authority,  whose  requirements  of  justice  and  ret- 
ribution the  understanding  and  the  will  can 
neither  stifle  nor  satisfy.     If  there  be  any  relief 

10 


110  MIRACLES. 

from  the  misery  of  sin,  it  can  only  come  from 
this  violated  authority  itself;  but  no  knowledge 
of  God  which  the  soul  originally  possesses,  nor 
any  which  Nature  can  furnish,  is  sufficient  to 
suggest  even  the  possibility  of  any  such  -relief 
Nature  adds  to  that  of  the  human  conscience 
her  own  testimony  of  the  heinousness  of  sin. 
She  tells  us  of  the  righteousness  of  punishment, 
and  the  inexorableness  of  law ;  but,  in  the 
myriad  voices  with  which  she  speaks  of  duty 
and  of  God,  there  is  no"  intimation  of  forgive- 
ness or  of  love.  That  God  is  good,  in  the  sense 
of  desiring  the  happiness  of  his  creatures.  Nature 
abundantly  discloses :  but  that  he  can  do  more 
than  confer  upon  them  the  benefits  of  creation, 
satisfying  one  created  object  by  another ;  that 
he  has  a  heart  which  pities,  and  is  willing  to 
pardon,  and  which  yearns  to  communicate  himself 
—  his  uncreated  and  divine  fulness  —  to  needy 
souls,  the  heavens  which  declare  his  glory,  and 
the  firmament  which  showeth  his  handiwork,  the 
day  unto  day  which  utter eth  speech,  and  the 
night  unto  night  which  showeth  knowledge  of 
him,  nowhere  disclose.  If  God's  mercy  to  sin- 
ners be  a  truth,  it  is  a  truth,  not  of  Nature,  but 
of  a  supernatural  world;  and  it  leaches  heights 
of  glory  in  the  Supernatural  which  the  human 
intellect  has,  of  itself,  no  power  to  ascend. 


MIEACLES.  Ill 

And  the  evidence  of  this,  if  the  proof  were 
wanting,  is  found  in  the  fact,  that  the  soul,  with 
no  other  instruction  than  itself  or  Nature  can 
furnish,  has  never  attained  such  knowledge.  In 
all  the  records  of  paganism,  while  the  divine 
power  and  wisdom  and  justice,  and  even  benefi- 
cence, are  clearly  declared,  no  mention  is  made 
of  the  divine  love.  In  the  idolatrous  sacrifices, 
in  the  penances  and  prayers,  of  the  heathen, 
there  is  doubtless  indicated  some  vague  idea  of 
propitiation,  —  some  undefined  conviction,  that, 
in  some  such  way,  God  may  be  approached  and 
pleased.  But  that  God  is  a  being  who  ap- 
proaches us  before  we  make  any  attempt  to 
draw  nigh  unto  him ;  that  he  regards  us  in 
mercy  because  of  his  love,  and  not  for  the  sake 
of  our  good  deeds ;  that  he  is  a  God  who  par- 
doneth  iniquity  because  he  delighteth  in  mercy, 
—  would  seem  to  be  a  thought  which  the  natural 
heart,  uninstructed  by  any  special  divine  revela- 
tion, is  unable  to  attain. 

I  confess,  therefore,  to  a  kind  of  surprise,  when 
I  find  certain  scholars  and  cultivated  writers  of 
our  own  time  and  neighborhood  classifying  the 
Bible  with  the  Koran,  and  the  Yedas,  and  the 
Zendavesta,  and  the  Five  Volumes,  to  which 
Confucius  and  the  Chinese  appeal.  Such  a  clas- 
sification, considered  simply  as  a  matter  of  liter- 


112  MIEACLES. 

ary  criticism,  is  very  superficial,  and  is  creditable 
neither  to  the  discrimination  nor  the  culture  of 
the  writers  who  make  it.  The  Bible,  certainly, 
stands  alone,  and  immeasurably  distant  from  all 
other  books,  in  this  one  grand  characteristic,  — 
that  its  religion  is  the  religion  where  God  is 
yearning  and  seeking  after  man,  and  where  man 
is  invited  and  entreated  and  commanded  to  draw 
nigh  unto  God,  solely  on  the  ground  that  God 
has  already  come  nigh  unto  man.  That  God 
takes  the  first  step  in  religion,  that  he  begins 
the  work  of  human  restoration  and  deliverance, 
nowhere  appears  till  the  Christian  Scriptures 
have  announced  it.  What  grand  and  awful 
visions  of  divine  justice  did  the  old  Greek  dram- 
atists behold!  What  terrors  of  righteousness 
and  retribution  have  been  heard,  in  cries  of  an- 
guish or  groans  of  despair,  all  over  the  world! 
But  who  has  known  that  God  is  gracious,  that 
he  can  forgive  sin,  that  he  loves  man,  until  the 
Bible  has  first  made  the  blessed  announce- 
ment? 

But  if  this  thought,  which  is  the  single  and 
peculiar  theme  of  the  Bible,  be  true,  can  any 
thing  be  so  important  to  man  as  its  communica- 
tion in  a  manner  which  shall  show  its  truth  to  be 
indisputable  ?  And  if  Nature  cannot  declare  it, 
and  the  human  mind  alone  cannot  reach  it,  how 


MIRACLES.  113 

is  this  communication  possible,  unless  directly 
announced  by  God  himself?  And  how  shall  this 
announcement  be  proved  to  be  from  God,  unless 
he  shall  irrefutably  manifest  himself  in  connec- 
tion with  the  utterance  ?  And  how  can  this 
manifestation  be,  except  through  that  miracu- 
lous interference  with  Nature  already  described? 
If  God's  mercy  to  sinners  be  true,  and  if  this 
truth  shall  ever  be  declared  to  those  who  are 
perishing  for  lack  of  it,  we  may  expect  the  dec- 
laration through  a  miracle. 

And  now  we  are  to  notice,  that,  while  the 
Bible  announces  this  great  doctrine  of  redemp- 
tion as  true,  declaring  that  God  has  provided  a 
perfect  remedy  for  sin,  it  also  claims  to  be  a 
miraculous  revelation.  It  professes  to  prove  the 
doctrine  by  miracles  which  furnish  God's  testi- 
mony to  its  truth.  In  both  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New,  miracles  are  continually  adduced 
as  a  motive  for  faith.  The  Lord  accompanied 
the  call  of  Moses  to  deliver  his  people  with  a 
miracle ;  and,  when  the  faith  of  the  chosen  leader 
was  thus  elicited  and  confirmed,  miracles  were 
wrought,  whose  express  design,  as  stated  by  the 
Lord  himself,  was  to  attest  to  the  children  of  Is- 
rael the  divine  commission  with  which  Moses  was 
furnished:  "  That  they  may  believe  that  the  Lord 
God  of  their  fathers,  the  God  of  Abraham,  the 

10* 


114  MIRACLES. 

God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob,  hatli  ap- 
jieared  unto  thee."* 

Miracles  were  still  further  wrought,  not  only 
to  establish  the  faith  of  the  Israelites,  but  to  con- 
vince the  Egyptians  themselves:  ^'  And  the  Egyp- 
tians shall  know  that  I  am  the  Lord,  when  I 
stretch  forth  mine  hand  upon  Egypt,  and  bring 
out  the  children  of  Israel  from  among  them."  f 

After  the  Israelites  had  been  delivered  by 
miracles,  and  their  faith  still  staggered,  miracles 
were  continued  for  its  confirmation.  In  an- 
nouncing these  before  they  took  place,  Moses 
says,  "  Then  ye  shall  know  that  the  Lord  hath 
brought  you  out  from  the  land  of  Egypt."  J 

When  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram  rebelled,  a 
signal  miracle  was  wrought  in  special  attestation 
of  the  divine  commission  of  Moses.  The  design 
of  the  miracle  Moses  declares,  when  he  says, 
"  Hereby  ye  shall  know  that  the  Lord  hath  sent 
me  to  do  all  these  works ;  for  I  have  not  done 
them  of  mine  own  mind."§ 

When  Moses  had  died,  miracles  bore  witness 
to  the  divine  authority  with  which  Joshua  was 
invested:  "And  the  Lord  said  unto  Joshua,  This 
day  will  I  begin  to  magnify  thee  in  the  sight  of 


*  Exod.  iv.  5  ;  cf.  8,  9.  t  Exod.  vii.  5  ;  cf.  ib.  ix.  29,  and  xi.  7, 

X  Exod.  xvi.  6  ;  cf.  7,  8, 12.     §  Num.  xvi.  8. 


MIRACLES.  115 

all  Israel,  that  they  may  know,  that  as  I  was  with 
Moses,  so  I  will  be  with  thee."* 

When  the  people  of  Israel  had  forsaken  the 
worship  of  Jehovah,  and  had  gone  after  the 
priests  of  Baal,  they  were  brought  back  to  their 
former  faith  by  a  miracle:  "The  God  that  an- 
swereth  by  fire,"  said  Elijah  upon  Mount  Car- 
mel,  "let  him  be  God."  "  Then  the  fire  of  the 
Lord  fell,  and  consumed  the  burnt-sacrifice,  and 
the  wood,  and  the  stones,  and  the  dust,  and 
licked  up  the  water  that  was  in  the  trench.  And 
when  all  the  people  saw  it  they  fell  upon  their 
faces ;  and  they  said.  The  Lord  he  is  the  God, 
the  Lord  he  is  the  God."f 

A  prime  motive  of  the  miracles  of  Christ  was 
to  convince  those  who  beheld  them  of  his  divine 
authority.  When  John  sent  two  of  his  disciples 
to  Christ  to  say  unto  him,  "  Art  thou  he  that 
should  come,  or  do  we  look  for  another?  Jesus 
answered,  and  said  unto  them.  Go  and  show 
John  again  those  things  which  ye  do  hear  and 
see,  —  the  blind  receive  their  sight,  and  the  lame 
walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  and  the  deaf  hear, 
the  dead  are  raised  up,  and  the  poor  have  the 
gospel  preached  to  them."  J  Before  healing  the 
sick  of  the  palsy,  he  says  to  those  around,  "But 

*  Josh.  iii.  7 ;  cf.  10-13.  t  1  Kings  xviii.  24,  38,  39. 

t  Matt.  xi.  3-5. 


116  MIRACLES. 

that  ye  may  know  that  the  Son  of  man  hath 
power  on  earth  to  forgive  sins  (he  saith  to  the 
sick  of  the  palsy),  I  say  unto  thee,  Arise,  and 
take  up  thy  bed,  and  go  thy  way  into  thine 
house."*  At  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  "Jesus 
lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  said.  Father,  I  thank  thee 
that  thou  hast  heard  me.  And  I  knew  that  thou 
hearest  me  always ;  but,  because  of  the  people 
which  stand  by,  I  said  it,  that  they  may  believe 
that  thou  hast  sent  me."  f  John  bore  witness  unto 
the  truth:  but  Jesus  says,  "  I  have  greater  wit- 
ness than  that  of  John ;  for  the  works  which  the 
Father  hath  given  me  to  finish,  the  same  works 
that  I  do,  bear  witness  of  me,  that  the  Father 
hath  sent  me."  J  "  If  I  do  not  the  works  of  my 
Father,  believe  me  not ;  but  if  I  do,  though  ye 
believe  not  me,  believe  the  works  ;  that  ye  may 
know  and  believe  that  the  Father  is  in  me,  and  I 
in  him."  §  A  recent  writer  says,  "  It  does  not 
appear  that  Jesus  aimed  to  force  conviction  by 
miracles; "  ||  but  in  simple  fact,  whether  we  take 
his  own  words  for  it,  or  the  actual  impression 
that  his  miracles  gave,  this  is  the  very  thing  at 
which  he  was  aiming.  "  And  many  of  the  peo- 
ple believed  on  him,  and  said.  When  Christ 
Cometh,  will   he   do   more   miracles   than  these 

*  Markii.  10,  11.  f  John  xi.  41,  42.  J  John  v.  36. 

§  John  X.  37,  38.  |1  Hedge,  Reason  in  Religion,  p.  264. 


MIEACLES.  lYT 

which  this  man  hath  done  ?  "  "^  In  other  words, 
could  the  true  Messiah  attest  his  claims  in  any 
stronger  way  ?  "  Now,  when  he  was  in  Jeru- 
salem, at  the  passover,  in  the  feast-day,  many 
believed  in  his  name  when  they  saw  the  miracles 
which  he  did."  f  "  Rabbi,"  said  Nicodemus,  "  we 
know  that  thou  art  a  teacher  come  from  God  ;  for 
no  man  can  do  these  miracles  that  thou  doest, 
except  God  be  with  him."  J 

The  power  to  work  miracles  was  given  to  the 
apostles  ;  and  they  exercised  it  also  as  the  proof 
of  their  divine  commission  :  "  They  went  forth 
and  preached  everywhere,  the  Lord  working 
with  them,  and  confirming  the  word  with  signs 
following;"  §  "God  also  beaiing  them  witness, 
both  with  signs  and  wonders,  and  with  divers 
miracles,  and  gifts  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  according 
to  his  own  will."  ||  Though  the  miracles  may 
have  ceased,  they  are  recorded,  that  those  who 
did  not  see  them  may  also  find  in  them  a  source 
of  faith  :  "These  are  written  that  ye  might  be- 
lieve that  Jesus  is  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God ; 
and  that,  believing,  ye  might  have  life  through 
his  name."^ 

We  must  admit,  therefore,  that  the  Bible 
grounds  its  claim  to  our  acceptance  as  a  revela- 

*  John  vii.  31.      t  John  ii.  23.      J  John  iii.  2. 
§  Mark  xvi.  20.     ||  Heb.  ii.  4.      H  John  xx.  31. 

% 


118  MIRACLES. 

tion  from  God  upon  its  miraculous  evidence. 
And  as  we  have  seen  that  this  book  stands  alone 
in  its  theme,  so  we  should  also  notice  that  it  ia 
also  and  equally  peculiar  in  its  miraculous  claims. 
No  other  book  claiming  to  be  a  divine  revelation 
has  professed  to  rest  upon  miracles.  In  the  Ko- 
ran, Mohammed  expressly  affirms  that  God's  word 
to  him  is,  "  Thou  art  commissioned  to  be  a 
preacher  only,  and  not  a  worker  of  miracles."^' 
Various  threats  and  promises  are  uttered  in  the 
Koran  to  unbelievers  and  believers  ;  but  the  mo- 
tive to  faith  is  declared  to  lie  exclusively  in  the 
revelation  itself  f  Centuries  after  the  death  of 
Mohammed,  miracles  were  related  of  him;  but 
there  is  no  evidence  that  he  made  any  pretension 
to  the  power  of  performing  them. 

Many  have  a  vague  notion,  that  the  claim  to 
work  miracles  belongs  to  every  rude  age,  and  has 
been  urged  in  support  of  every  superstition;  but 
this  is  not  true.  Unnumbered  systems  of  pagan- 
ism have,  indeed,  their  unnumbered  prodigies 
and  signs  and  miracles  ;  but  the  systems  do  not 
depend  upon  these.  They  nowhere  profess  to 
do  so :  on  the  other  hand,  the  miracles  hang 
upon  them.  Instead  of  giving  any  support  to 
the  system  to  which  they  belong,  they  receive 

*  Koran,  Sura,  xiii.  8. 

t  Ibid.,  vi.  33,  34  i  x.  20 ;  xiii.  28,  31,  38. 


MIRACLES.  119 

all  their  support  from  it.  Nowhere  are  they  pre- 
sented as  the  evidence  of  a  doctrine ;  but  they 
come  forth  as  the  result  or  appendage  of  a  doc- 
trine already  believed.  The  Bible,  however, 
does  not  undertake  so  much  to  prove  its  miracles 
by  its  doctrines ;  but  it  seeks  to  prove  its  doc- 
trines, in  the  first  place,  by  them.  Whether  or 
not  this  claim  be  valid,  it  is  at  least  unique. 

We  cannot,  therefore,  exaggerate  the  impor- 
tance of  miracles  in  the  Christian  system.  Our 
belief  in  that  system  depends,  at  last,  upon  its 
miraculous  evidence.  If  miracles  are  impossible 
or  incredible,  or  cannot  be  actually  proved,  then 
is  the  Christian  system  a  delusion.  The  incar- 
nation of  Christ,  if  it  ever  took  place,  was  a  mir- 
acle, without  which  our  belief  in  redemption  is 
impossible.  The  resurrection  of  Christ,  if  it  did 
occur,  was  certainly  a  miracle  of  a  stupendous 
sort:  "But  if  Christ  be  not  risen,  then  is  our 
preaching  vain,  and  your  faith  is  also  vain."  "^ 

Thus  far,  I  take  it,  neither  our  facts  can  be 
ignored,  nor  the  deductions  from  them  disputed. 
Here  is  the  fact  of  sin,  and  the  burden  of  uni- 
versal sorrow  beneath  which  it  buries  men.  Here 
is  the  need  of  pardon  and  purity,  which  Nature 
cannot  give,  which  man  cannot  procure,  which 

*  1  Cor.  XV.  14. 


120  MIRACLBS. 

God  alone  can  furnish,  and  whose  announcement 
he  alone  can  make  through  means  which  shall 
irrefutably  disclose  his  presence.  Here  is  the 
Bible,  which  stands  alone  among  all  books  in  its 
declaration  of  God's  mercy,  and  in  its  adducing 
of  miracles  to  prove  that  its  declarations  are  from 
God,  and  are  therefore  true.  All  this  is  quite 
remarkable ;  but  the  question  still  remains, 
whether  the  Bible  actually  gives  us  evidence 
enough  that  its  miracles  did  occur.  The  oc- 
casion was  momentous:  the  need  was  incalcu- 
lable. Was  the  occasion  met?  Is  the  need 
supplied  ? 

To  this  inquiry  the  answer  is,  that,  if  the  mir- 
acles did  occur,  no  evidence  of  the  fact  could 
be  better  than  that  which  we  actually  possess. 
No  events  in  history  have  a  wider  and  more  un- 
equivocal testimony  than  have  these.  The  mira- 
cles were  not  done  in  a  corner.  There  was  no 
effort  to  conceal  them.  They  challenged  scrutiny. 
Though  always  wrought  in  proof  of  the  one  truth 
of  redemption,  they  were  done  in  many  places,  at 
many  times,  by  different  persons,  to  whom  it  was 
given  to  declare  different  points  or  applications 
of  the  great  theme.  They  were  witnessed  by 
thousands.  They  were  of  such  a  nature,  tha.t  the 
beholders  could  not  be  mistaken  as  to  whether 
they  did  take  place.     That  Christ  should  walk 


MIKACLES.  121 

upon  the  water ;  that  he  should  still  the  storm 
by  a  word ;  that  he  should  raise  the  dead  even 
where  the  body  had  been  buried  four  days  ;  that 
he  should  heal  the  blind,  the  deaf,  the  lame,  the 
ieper,  with  a  touch,  a  look,  a  word;  that  he 
should  be  crucified,  dead,  and  buried,  and  then 
rise  from  the  dead,  and  be  seen  for  forty  days  by 
those  who  had  known  him  most  intimately  before 
his  death,  —  can  be  explained  by  no  jugglery  nor 
deception ;  and  these  events  must  actually  have 
occurred  as  reported,  or  their  reporters  have 
fabricated  the  stories,  knowing  them  to  be  false. 
But  why  should  such  a  fabrication  be  attempted  ? 
and  how  was  it  possible  to  carry  out  the  decep- 
tion ?  The  apostles  had  nothing  to  gain,  but 
every  thing  to  lose,  by  such  an  undertaking.  To 
affirm  these  stories  of  their  Master  was  to  brino* 

o 

npon  them  also  their  Master's  fate.  Because  of 
their  report,  the  apostles  did  suffer  obloquy,  per- 
secution, and  death  ;  and,  though  they  must  have 
foreseen  this  result,  they  continued  their  declara- 
tion, ceasing  not  to  teach  and  to  preach  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ,  and  that  these  mighty  works 
were  wrought  of  God  through  him.  Does  this 
look  like  an  attempt  to  deceive  ?  Is  it  possible 
that  in  all  this  the  apostles  were  only  acting  out 
a  lie  ?  Surely  this  would  be  only  a  miracle  more 
astounding  than  any  which  they  declare. 
11 


122  MIRACLES. 

But  more  than  this :  the  word  of  the  apostles 
was  believed.  It  was  believed  on  the  very  spot 
where  the  miracles  were  declared  to  have  taken 
place,  and  by  thousands  who  could  have  at  once 
disproved  the  story  if  it  were  not  true.  It  was 
believed  by  their  enemies.  The  apostles  fur- 
nished proof  of  their  statements,  which  no 
amount  of  argument  or  persecution  could  rebut. 
The  recital  found  adherents  everywhere.  The 
bigoted  Jew,  the  scornful  Greek,  the  proud  Ro- 
man, acknowledged  its  force.  It  won  its  way  in 
the  largest  cities  of  the  world.  It  conquered  the 
chief  seats  of  culture.  It  took  possession  of  the 
high  places  of  power.  Hardly  three  centuries 
from  the  crucifixion,  a  disciple  of  Christ  sat  upon 
the  throne  of  the  Csesars,  and  the  world  lay  at  his 
feet.  Now,  as  the  miracles  were  continually  put 
forth  by  the  early  preachers  of  Christianity  as  the 
evidence  of  its  truth,  it  must  have  been  believed 
that  they  occurred.  But  when  we  remember 
how  manifest  and  how  numerous  and  how  mar 
vellous  the  so-called  miracles  were,  and  how 
boldly  the  apostles  proclaimed  them,  and  how 
constantly  they  relied  upon  them,  and  that  the 
numbers  who  participated  in  the  scenes  de- 
scribed, and  who  might  have  disproved  the 
miracles  if  they  had  not  occurred,  must  have 
exceeded  the  apostles  by  thousands  to  one,  is  it 


MIRACLES.  123 

possible  fhat  it  was  all  a  mistake  ?     This,  I  say 
again,  would  be  the  greatest  miracle  of  all. 

But  still  further :  It  does  not  appear  that  any- 
one ever  ventured  to  deny  the  miracles  at  the 
time  when  the  apostles  were  declaring  them  as 
the  reason  why  all  the  world  should  believe  that 
Jesus  is  the  Christ.  Christianity  did  not  meet 
with  an  easy  reception,  though  it  spread  so  rap- 
idly. It  was  opposed  on  every  hand.  Per- 
secution was  not  the  only  means  employed  for 
its  overthrow.  Learning  and  philosophy  set  their 
forces  in  array,  and  sought  to  demolish  it  on  high 
intellectual  grounds.  But,  in  all  that  was  said  in 
opposition  to  it  during  its  early  history,  not  a 
word  appears  to  have  been  uttered  against  the 
reality  of  its  miracles.  Every  argument  was 
urged  which  the  keenest  hostility  could  suggest ; 
but  no  one  seems  to  have  thought  it  possible  to 
deny  that  the  miracles  took  place.  But  if  there 
had  been,  at  the  time,  any  room  for  the  denial, 
does  any  one  doubt  that  it  would  have  been  ut- 
tered? We  must  remember  that  the  apostles 
were  preaching  an  exclusive  religion.  They  were 
continually  declaring  that  there  is  no  other  way 
of  salvation.  They  set  themselves  against  every 
form  of  doctrine,  however  venerable  or  dear, 
which  was  contrary  to  the  name  of  Jesus  of  Naz- 
areth ;    and  when,  in  proof  of   theii*   doctrine, 


124  MIRACLES. 

they  hold  up  the  miracles  everywhere,  and  no 
one  anywhere  attempts  to  deny  them,  is  it  not 
clear  that  the  evidence  for  them  was  felt  to  be 
irrefutable  ? 

But  there  is  yet  a  stronger  point.  Not  only 
did  the  opposers  of  Christianity  fail  to  deny  the 
miracles ;  they  actually  admitted  them,  and  have 
left  their  testimony  to  the  fact  of  their  occur- 
rence: "  He  casteth  out  devils  by  Beelzebub,"  * 
said  the  Jewish  rulers,  unable  to  deny  the  fact  of 
the  wonderful  work.  In  like  manner,  Celsus  and 
Hierocles,  and  Julian  the  apostate,  and  the  Jew- 
ish rabbis  in  the  Talmud,  —  all  of  whom  wrote 
and  argued  even  bitterly  against  Christianity,  — • 
have  yet  all  left  their  acknowledgment,  which 
we  still  possess,  of  the  actual  occurrence  of  these 
events,  which  they  seek  to  account  for  by  magi- 
cal arts ;  which  Celsus  af&rms  Christ  must  have 
learned  in  Egypt,  and  by  which  he  was  able  to 
deceive  great  multitudes.  Are  we  not  entitled 
to  say,  therefore,  that  here  is  a  certainty  ?  If  any 
thing  can  be  certain,  these  facts  thus  reported 
did  occur.  The  great  doctrine  which  the  Bible 
proclaims,  it  also  proves.  It  is  not  unmeaning  ; 
it  is  no  delusion ;  it  is  the  great  truth  of  God, 
that  "he  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his 

*  Matt.  ix.  34;  Mark  iii.  22;  Lukexi.  15. 


MIRACLES.  125 

only -begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting 
life."  *  "  Therefore  we  ought  to  give  the  more 
earnest  heed  to  the  things  which  we  have  heard, 
lest  at  any  time  we  should  let  them  slip.  For  if 
the  word  spoken  by  angels  was  steadfast,  and 
every  transgression  and  disobedience  received  a 
just  recompense  of  reward,  how  shall  we  escape 
if  we  neglect  so  great  salvation,  which  at  the  first 
began  to  be  spoken  by  the  Lord,  and  was  con- 
firmed unto  us  by  them  that  heard  him,  God  also 
bearing  them  witness,  both  with  signs  and  won- 
ders, and  with  divers  miracles,  and  gifts  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  according  to  his  own  will  ?  "  f 

I  have  thus  far  preferred  to  deal  with  the 
question  on  its  positive  side,  seeking  only  to 
discover  and  declare  the  exact  matter  of  fact, 
without  reference  to  any  inquiry  respecting  the 
antecedent  impossibility  and  incredibility  of  these 
events.  If  it  be  proved  —  as  I  claim  must  be 
admitted  from  the  evidence  we  possess  —  that 
miracles  have  actually  taken  place,  then  they  are 
both  possible  and  credible  ;  and  any  speculative 
difficulties  upon  this  point  must  be  untenable. 
But,  if  untenable,  can  they  not  be  shown  to  be 
thus  on  speculative  grounds?  and  is  this  not  de- 

*  John  iii.  16.  t  Heb.  il  1-4 


126  MIRACLES. 

sirable?  I  answer  affirmatively,  and  proceed, 
without  reluctance,  to  the  task ;  though,  in  doing 
this,  I  do  not  admit  that  the  positive  argument  in 
favor  of  miracles  needs  ought  further  than  its 
own  statement,  clearly  apprehended,  to  compel 
assent. 

I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the 
objection,  considerably  urged  in  some  quarters, 
that  a  miracle  is  only  a  physical  fact ;  and  is  there- 
fore, at  the  best,  but  an  argument  addressed  to 
the  senses,  and  should  not  be  put  forth  as  a  meth- 
od of  convincing  the  intellect.  I  am  not  sure 
that  I  understand  this  objection ;  for  I  cannot 
look  upon  it  from  any  standpoint  which  gives  it 
force,  except  as  I  shut  my  eyes  to  the  most  open 
facts  of  every  man's  experience.  Physical  facts, 
or  arguments  addressed  to  the  senses,  do  con- 
tinually move  the  intellect  of  every  man.  The 
sunrise  is  a  physical  fact ;  but  does  it  convey  noth- 
ing more  to  the  intellect  of  the  man  who  beholds 
it  than  it  does  to  the  ox  ?  The  ocean,  the  clouds, 
the  stars,  the  human  voice,  the  face  of  a  friend, 
the  form  of  a  statue,  the  colors  of  a  painting  or  a 
landscape,  —  all  these  are  physical  facts,  —  argu- 
ments addressed  to  the  senses,  if  one  please ;  but 
is  there  no  beauty  nor  truth  disclosed  through 
them  ?  and  could  the  disclosure  come  in  any  other 
way? 


MIRACLES.  127 

Neitlier  does  it  seem  necessary  to  tarry  witli 
the  objection,  that  a  miracle  indicates  caprice  or 
vacillation  on  the  part  of  God.  The  miracle  does 
not  contradict  the  grand  statement  of  Scripture, 
that  the  Lord  is  of  one  mind,  and  "known  unto 
God  are  all  his  works  from  the  foundations  of  the 
world."  It  may  have  been  as  truly  a  part  of 
his  purpose  to  produce  the  miracle  as  that  any 
natural  event  should  take  place  ;  and  there  is  no 
more  difficulty  in  supposing  that  something  ab- 
solutely new  should  be  introduced  into  Nature, 
than  that  Nature  itself,  as  something  new,  should 
be  introduced,  when,  "in  the  beginning,  God 
created  the  heavens  and  the  earth." 

The  first  objection  which  I  would  more  partic- 
ularly consider  has  been  most  recently  uttered 
by  Mr.  Lecky,  who,  in  his  somewhat  confused 
"  History  of  European  Morals,"  deems  that  the 
Christian  miracles  had  very  little  to  do  with  the 
conversion  of  the  Roman  Empire,  because  every- 
body in  those  days  believed  in  miracles,  and  no 
one  attached  any  special  importance  to  them. 
They  were  af&xed  to  the  Christian  doctrine  as  a 
matter  of  course,  just  as  similar  wonders  accom- 
panied other  recitals ;  but  the  inductive  philos- 
ophy of  our  time  has  substituted  a  critical  spirit 
for  the  credulity  which  then  prevailed,  and  we 
are  able  to  see  that  the  Christian  and  all  other 
miracles  are  equally  untrue. 


128  MIRACLES. 

Now,  it  may  be  that  there  was  a  readier  ac- 
ceptance of  the  supernatural  at  that  period  than 
at  the  j)resent  time  ;  and  yet,  if  we  subject  this 
notion  to  this  same  critical  spirit  of  advanced 
modern  thought,  we  fail  to  find  such  evidence 
of  its  truth  as  the  confident  assertion  of  it  would 
seem  to  imply.  There  were  sceptics  then  as 
well  as  now.  There  were  railers  at  the  current 
notions  of  divine  things,  as  numerous  and  as 
self-confident,  then  as  now.  There  were  the 
esoteric  mysteries,  not  peculiar  to  the  Greeks, 
but  probably  learned  by  them  from  the  Egyp- 
tians, and  found  also  with  the  Persian  magi  and 
the  ancient  Druids,  in  which  the  initiated  were 
permitted  to  see  the  irrationalities  of  the  common 
faith.  There  were  Gorgias  and  Protagoras  and 
Lucretius  and  Lucian,  who  would  probably 
match  any  of  our  modern  deniers  of  the  super- 
natural ;  besides  Celsus  and  Porphyry  and  Hier- 
ocles  and  Julian,  whose  earnestness  of  convic- 
tion no  modern  unbeliever  in  Christianity  will 
be  likely  to  outdo.  Porphyry  and  Jamblichus 
wrote  lives  of  Pythagoras,  adorned  with  won- 
ders as  marvellous,  to  say  the  least,  as  any  re- 
corded in  the  Gospels ;  but  the  age  was  not 
sufficiently  inclined  to  the  supernatural  to  receive 
them  with  credit.  Not  every  thing  wonderful 
was  then  believed. 


MIRACLES.  129 

The  trutli  is,  that,  while  the  supernatural  may 
be  denied  by  some  in  every  age,  it  has  always 
proved  itself  the  belief  of  the  great  mass  of  men, 
and  is,  perhaps,  as  prominent  at  the  present  as 
at  any  time.  Counterfeits  prove  not  only  the 
worth,  but  the  currency,  of  the  genuine  coin  ; 
and  the  easy  and  wide  spread  of  the  so-called 
Spiritualism  —  not  to  mention  other  errors  illus- 
trating the  same  —  shows  that  very  considerable 
obstacles  still  resist  the  attempt  to  root  out  the 
supernatural  from  the  thoughts  of  common  men. 

Now,  if  there  was  no  importance  attached  to 
miracles  in  the  days  of  the  apostles,  and  if,  as  no 
one  disputes,  Christianity  won  its  way  in  the 
face  of  every  opposition,  till  it  conquered  a  su- 
preme place  in  the  esteem  of  the  entire  civilized 
world,  then  how  is  this  latter  fact  to  be  account- 
ed for,  unless  we  bring  in  —  though  the  objec- 
tor has  no  thought  of  introducing  it  —  some 
superior  intrinsic  evidence  in  Christianity  itself,  by 
which  it  was  able  to  convince  the  world  of  its 
truth  ?  Men  do  not  give  up  cherished  convic- 
tions, and  receive,  instead,  a  doctrine  which 
contradicts  all  they  have  previously  held,  for  no 
cause.  Nations  do  not  change  their  customs 
and  belief  suddenly,  and  without  any  reason. 
Paganism,  in  the  Roman  Empire,  did  not  die 
without  a  struggle :  how  came  it  to  die  at  all  ? 


130  MIRACLES. 

It  employed  both  persecution  and  argument  to 
sustain  itself:  why  did  it  not  succeed?  To  say, 
as  Mr.  Lecky  does,  that  it  was  because  of  a 
"  disintegration  of  old  religions,  and  a  general 
thirst  for  belief,"  shows  neither  the  sagacious 
historian  nor  philosopher;  for  the  question  at 
once  recurs,  How  did  Christianity  come  to  satis- 
fy this  general  thirst  for  belief?  and  how,  in  this 
disintegration  of  old  religions,  was  the  new  re- 
ligion able  to  stand,  as  though  it  was  the  word 
of  God,  which  liveth  and  abideth  forever  ?  Say 
what  we  will,  the  indisputable  fact  remains,  that 
paganism  in  the  Eoman  Empire  died  because  it 
was  supplanted  :  it  lost  its  sway  because  a  might- 
ier power  wrenched  the  sceptre  from  its  grasp  ; 
and,  if  historians  choose  to  say  that  miracles 
were  no  element  of  this  mightier  power,  then  they 
are  bound  to  tell  us  what  the  elements  of  it  act- 
ually were.  What  is  the  cause  of  these  prodi- 
gious effects  ?  That  the  fruit  is  ripe,  and  ready  to 
drop,  does  not  explain  its  fall,  unless  there  is  some 
power  of  gravity  to  bring  it  down.  That  the 
nations  were  ready  for  the  gospel ;  that  Christ 
came,  as  the  Scripture  says,  "in  the  fulness  of 
time,"  —  does  not  account  for  the  conversion  of 
the  nations,  unless  they  were  convinced  that  he 
was  the  living  object  of  their  desire.  That  they 
were  thus  convinced  is  the   indisputable   fact; 


MIRACLES.  131 

but,  if  his  miracles  had  no  cogency,  how  could  thia 
have  been,  unless  he  possessed  other  and  superior 
means  of  compelling  assent  to  his  claims  ?  The 
denial  that  miracles  had  any  force  in  the  early 
spread  of  Christianity  obliges  one  to  declare  that 
the  gospel  has  such  interior  and  self-evident 
proof,  that  nothing  is  needful  but  its  own  state- 
ments to  show  men  that  it  is  divine.  I  am  willing 
to  leave  the  objector  undisturbed  in  either  of 
these  positions.  Augustine  long  ago  said,  "  If 
you  do  not  believe  the  miracles,  you  must  then 
believe  that  the  world  was  converted  without 
miracles;  and  this  would  be  a  miracle." 

Another  phase  of  this  same  objection  relates 
to  the  test  of  a  miracle.  If  we  allow  that  mira- 
cles are  possible  and  credible,  how  shall  we 
distinguish  the  spurious  from  the  genuine,  —  the 
"lying  wonders,"  which  come  "with  all  deceiv- 
ableness  of  unrighteousness  in  them  that  perish,"  * 
and  the  miracles  which  are  wrought  and  recorded 
that  we  might  "believe  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  God  "  ?  If  the  magicians  with  their 
enchantments  f  did  such  things  as  Moses  did, 
why  should  we  not  put  faith  in  them  as  well  as 
in  Moses  ?  And  if  Simon,  the  Samaritan  •  sor- 
cerer, J  was  a  man  "to  whom  all  of  the    city 

♦  2  Thess.  ii.  10.        t  Exod.  vii.,  viii.        {  Acts.  viii.  9,  10. 


132  MIEACLES. 

gave  heed,  from  the  least  unto  the  greatest,  say- 
ing, This  man  is  the  great  power  of  God,"  why 
does  not  he  have  as  high  claims  to  our  regard  as 
does  Peter,  who  denounced  him  to  his  face  ? 

To  this  there  is*a  double  answer.  In  the  first 
place,  the  Bible  makes  a  clear  distinction  be- 
tween the  two.  While  it  relates  the  wonders  of 
the  magicians  and  sorcerers,  it  also  relates  how 
these  men  were  confounded  by  a  mightier  power 
than  they  could  wield.  Omnipotence  is  never  at 
their  control,  and  they  are  furnished  with  no 
divine  attestation.  On  the  other  hand,  they  are 
continually  met  and  controlled  by  what  is  evi- 
dently an  almighty  power.  Still  further :  the  Bible 
records  certain  events,  which  demanded,  beyond 
dispute,  God's  special  interposition.  Such  were 
those  connected  with  the  deliverance  of  the 
Hebrews  from  Egypt,  by  which  they  were  con- 
strained to  say,  "  The  Lord  brought  us  forth  out 
of  Egypt  with  a  mighty  hand,  and  with  an  out- 
stretched arm,  and  with  great  terribleness,  and 
with  signs  and  wonders."^  On  the  basis  of  these 
miracles,  Moses  might  appeal,  as  the  Bible  says  he 
did,  to  the  truth  thus  revealed,  as  the  standard 
by  which  all  other  doctrines  might  be  tested :  "  If 
there  arise  among  you  a  prophet,  or  a  dreamer 

f  Deut.  xxvi.  8. 


MIEACLES.  133 

of  dreams,  and  givetli  thee  a  sign  or  a  wonder, 
and  the  sign  or  the  wonder  come  to  pass  whereof 
he  spake  unto  thee,  saying,  Let  us  go  after  other 
gods  which  thou  hast  not  known,  and  let  us 
serve  them,  thou  shalt  not  hearken  unto  the 
words  of  that  prophet  or  that  dreamer  of 
dreams."^  As  though  he  had  said,  "God  has 
given,  by  his  miracles,  indisputable  proof  that  he 
is  the  Lord  your  God :  let  no  sign  nor  wonder 
contradict  this ;  for  he  never  can  contradict  him- 
self" In  like  manner,  Paul,  of  whom  Christ, 
after  hi^aresnrrection,  was  seen,  "as  of  one  born 
out  of  due  time,"  f  might  appeal  to  that  resur- 
rection as  the  all-sufficient  voucher  for  the 
doctrines  which  he  declared ;  and  might  say,  as 
he  did  to  the  Galatians,  "Though  we,  or  an 
angel  from  heaven,  preach  any  other  gospel 
unto  you  than  that  which  we  have  preached 
unto  you,  let  him  be  accursed."  J  Whether  we 
explain  the  "lying  wonders"  as  wrought  by 
jugglery,  or  by  bringing  into  play  forces  of 
Nature  which  only  the  performers  knew,  or  by  a 
supernatural  power  of  evil  which  has  been  able 
to  penetrate  the  natural  world  with  its  hostility 
to  the  good,  —  in  no  case  does  the  Bible  fail  to 
furnish   the   means    for   a    clear   discrimination 


*  Deut.  xiii.  1-3.  f  1  Cor.  xv.  8.  |  Gal.  i.  8. 

12 


134  MIRACLES. 

between  the   two   kinds   of  wonders   which   it 
records. 

Another  answer  to  this  question  will  also 
reply  to  a  still  broader  inquiry,  —  Why  affirm 
the  miracles  of  the  Bible,  and  deny  those  related 
in  other  books  ?  Are  not  the  healing  of  a  blind 
man  and  a  cripple  by  Vespasian,  and  the  print 
of  the  nails  upon  St.  Francis,  and  the  wonders 
performed  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris,  with 
unnumbered  other  incidents  of  the  same  sort, 
facts  for  which  the  testimony  is  clear  and  ample  ? 
and  were  not  these  as  truly  miracles  as  aiiy  which 
the  Scripture  records  ?  I  do  not  care  here  to 
scrutinize  the  evidence  on  which  the  reports  of 
these  marvels  rest ;  though  it  must  be  confessed, 
that,  in  the  great  majority  of  the  instances  ad- 
duced, when  the  evidence  is  thoroughly  sifted,  it 
falls  to  the  ground.  But  supposing  we  admit 
that  a  blind  man  was  restored  to  sight,  and  a 
cripple  to  strength,  by  the  touch  and  word  of 
Vespasian,  though  Tacitus  and  Suetonius,  the 
only  authorities  for  the  story,  differ  in  their 
account  to  a  degree,  which,  if  found  in  the  New- 
Testament  writers,  would  assuredly  be  said  to  in- 
validate their  testimony :  but  waiving  this,  and 
supposing  it  also  to  be  true  that  the  stigmata 
actually  appeared  upon  the  hands  and  feet  of 
St.  Francis,  and  that  extraordinary  cures  were 


MIRACLES.  135 

WTOuglit  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paiis,  and  that 
persons  have  been  apparently  cured  of  the  scrof- 
ula by  the  touch  of  a  king,  —  the  evidence  of  any 
thing  miraculous,  or  of  a  divine  interposition  for 
the  counteraction  of  Nature,  is  still  wholly  lack- 
ing. The  science  of  anthropology  discloses  many 
and  curious  susceptibilities  to  bodily  changes 
through  mental  impressions;  and,  if  these  mar- 
vels happened,  they  may  be  illustrations  of  forces 
belonging  wholly  to  Nature,  and  which  we  as  yet 
but  partially  apprehend.  I  deny  any  thing 
miraculous  in  these  events,  and  challenge  the  ob- 
jector for  his  proof;  but  I  affirm  the  miraculous 
in  those  great  events  to  which  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures appeal,  and  I  prove  the  affirmation  by  the 
occasion,  the  results,  and  the  quality  of  the 
events  themselves.  These  events  took  place,  as 
we  have  seen,  in  attestation  of  a  doctrine  of 
incalculable  importance  for  men  to  know,  but 
whose  truth  no  other  means  were  adequate  to 
disclose.  They  have,  therefore,  a  sufficient  oc- 
casion ;  while  the  other  class  has  none.  Give  to 
these  pagan  and  papal  marvels  undisputed  evi- 
dence, and  all  the  significance  they  claim,  and 
how  far  does  this  significance  reach  ?  —  simply  to 
this,  that  certain  marvels  were  done  which, 
ended  with  their  doing ;  which  had  no  results 
beyond   the    persons    upon   whom    they   were 


136  MIRACLES. 

wrought ;  and  wliich,  so  far  as  the  pagan  won- 
ders are  concerned,  did  not  profess  to  have. 
The  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  were  not 
done  simply  that  certain  individuals  might  be 
saved  from  certain  natural  misfortunes ;  but  these 
natural  misfortunes  are  removed  in  a  supernat- 
ural way,  in  order  that  not  only  to  these  individ- 
uals, but  to  all  the  world,  there  may  be  taught 
the  great  doctrine,  to  wit,  "that  God  was  in 
Christ,  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself,  not 
imputing  their  trespasses  unto  them."*  In 
reference  to  these  other  marvels,  we  may  say  of 
them,  as  Origen  did,  "What  came  of  them?  In 
what  did  they  issue  ?  Where  is  the  society  which 
has  been  founded  by  their  help  ?  What  is  there 
in  the  world's  history  which  they  have  helped 
forward,  to  show  that  they  lay  deep  in  the  mind 
and  counsel  of  God?  The  miracles  of  Moses 
issued  in  a  Jewish  polity ;  those  of  the  Lord  in  a 
Christian  Church :  whole  nations  were  knit 
together  through  their  help.  What  have  your 
boasted  Apollonius  or  Esculapius  to  show  as  the 
fruit  of  theirs  ?  What  traces  have  they  left  be- 
hind them  ?  " 

But  the  character  of  the   events,  as  well   as 
their    occasion    and    results,    determines    their 

*  2  Cor.  V.  19. 


MIRACLES.  137 

miraculous  quality.  Take  suck  instancefi  as  the 
raising  of  Lazarus  or  the  resurrection  of  Christ ; 
and  to  what  jugglery  or  deception,  or  force  of 
Nature,  however  hidden,  can  these  events  be  re- 
ferred? Nay,  do  not  all  our  investigations  of 
Nature,  all  the  results  of  modern  science,  instead 
of  pointing  us  to  some  hitherto  undiscovered  law 
of  Nature  as  the  sufficient  cause  of  such  events, 
put  it  beyond  all  question  that  no  force  of  Nature 
could  have  produced  them?  Modern  science 
has,  at  least,  taught  us  that  these  events  cannot 
have  been  natural  events;  and  we  are  forced, 
therefore,  to  admit  their  supernatural  origin,  or, 
in  spite  of  the  evidence  in  their  support,  to  denj' 
the  possibility  of  their  occurrence. 

We  come,  then,  to  this  denial,  in  which  the 
opposition  to  miracles,  in  our  time,  finds  its  last 
stronghold.  A  miracle,  it  is  said,  is  impossible  ; 
and,  therefore,  no  amount  of  testimony,  nor  any 
number  of  men  who  have  believed  it,  can  make 
me  believe  it.  Nature  is  fixed  and  orderly.  To 
change  an  atom  would  change  all  the  worlds. 
To  increase  or  diminish,  in  the  least  degree,  the 
exact  amount  of  forces  now  constituting  the 
universe,  would  destroy  the  universe.  This  in- 
troduction of  a  new  force  in  Nature,  such  as  a 
miracle  presupposes,  is  impossible.  Forces  of 
Nature  may  be  dissolved,  and  recombined ;   but 

12* 


138  MIEACLES. 

always  their  exact  equivalence  will  remain. 
Nothing  new  can  be  created,  and  nothing  old 
destroyed.  Moreover,  says  the  objector  to  the 
Christian  Theist,  you  prove  the  existence  of  your 
Deity  by  an  appeal  to  the  orderly  arrangement 
of  Nature ;  but  you  can  only  prove  your  miracle 
by  denying  this  same  orderly  arrangement.  You 
build  a  stairway  up  to  a  certain  landing-place, 
and  then  you  maintain  this  landing-place  by  de- 
stroying the  very  process  which  led  to  it,  and  the 
very  basis  on  which  it  stands.  If  your  faith  can 
rest  on  such  a  contradiction,  much  more  may  my 
unbelief  I  justify,  therefore,  my  denial  of  mir- 
acles, because  they  are  impossible,  and  because 
the  interposition  of  God,  which  they  assume, 
demands  an  argument  which  would  destroy  the 
very  proof  that  there  is  a  God. 

I  have  endeavored  to  state  the  argument  fully 
and  fairly.  We  should  not  attempt  to  maintain 
what  cannot  be  defended  against  any  and  all 
attacks. 

Now,  it  is  not  a  reply  to  this  objection,  to  say 
that  a  miracle  only  brings  in  a  higher  order  of 
Nature  than  we  had  known  before,  and  thus  the 
miracle-worker  is  only  he,  who,  knowing  the 
event  which  is  going  to  take  place,  but  of  which 
others  are  ignorant,  takes  advantage  of  his  supe- 
rior wisdom  to  secure  an   acknowledgment  of 


MIRACLES.  139 

liis  superior  power.  But  this  would  be  no  miracle. 
It  would  be  no  communication  of  God  to  the  soul. 
Such  a  view  would  neither  maintain  the  Christian 
revelation,  nor  answer  the  objection  against  its 
miraculous  evidence. 

Let  us  meet  the  objection  face  to  face,  and 
look  it  in  the  eye.  Stripped  of  its  verbiage,  it 
amounts  to  this,  —  a  miracle  is  unreasonable,  and 
therefore  impossible.  But  what  do  we  mean  by 
reasonable  and  unreasonable  ?  What  is  this 
supreme  potency,  which  determines  so  easily 
whether  aught  be  possible  or  impossible  ?  The 
objector  appeals  to  it  most  confidently ;  and  so 
do  we,  and  so  do  all  men.  What  does  it  mean  ? 
Is  it  only  a  word  without  reality,  and  with  which 
our  thoughts  cheat  themselves  ?  But,  then,  how 
idle  all  appeals  to  it  must  be  !  and  how  absurd 
this  very  objection  becomes  !  If  the  reasonable 
has  no  reality,  the  objector  to  miracles  because 
of  their  unreasonableness  has  no  reality  in  the 
very  ground- work  of  his  objection. 

But  supposing  we  admit  that  the  reasonable 
is  real,  and  confine  its  reality  to  what  an  individ- 
ual man  perceives  and  judges.  There  is  thus  no 
universal  standard  of  reason  to  which  all  our 
perceptions  and  judgments  should  conform ;  but 
the  reasonable  is  in  a  man's  consciousness  alone, 
and  it  is  unmeaning  to  talk  of  it  as  elsewhere  or 


140  MIRACLES. 

otherwise.  But,  if  this  be  so,  what  folly  to  talk 
at  all !  Why  should  a  man  ever  say  a  word  if 
there  is  no  universal  standard  of  reason  according 
to  which  his  words  can  be  judged  by  another 
mind  as  truly  as  his  own?  And  how  does  all 
argument,  i.  e.  every  attempt  to  make  others 
think  as  we  do,  fall  to  the  ground,  if  there  is  not 
above  and  beyond  us  a  standard  to  which  we 
feel  that  not  only  our  judgments,  but  those  of 
every  man,  should  conform !  If  the  reasonable 
be  only  what  I  fancy  to  be  so,  I  may  not,  indeed, 
ask  the  objector  to  miracles  to  relinquish  his 
objections ;  but  just  as  little  may  he  require  me 
to  admit  their  force.  Each  man  thus  stands 
upon  a  ground  which  he  can  neither  maintain 
against  another,  nor  be  forced  by  another  to 
abandon ;  and  all  argument  between  men  is  vain, 
and  all  agreement  among  them  hopeless. 

But  if  we  suppose  the  reasonable  is  something 
real,  and  has  also  its  reality  in  some  nature  of 
things  outside  and  independent  of  the  individual 
mind  which  perceives  it,  we  should  then  have  a 
standard  by  which  we  could  measure  our  indi- 
vidual judgments,  and  which  would  enable  us  to 
argue  with  some  possibility  of  agreement.  In 
this  view,  the  reasonable  would  mean  the  facts 
of  Nature  just  as  we  discover  them.  I  thus  go 
to  Nature,  and  observe  what  is  occurring  there ; 


MIEACLES.  141 

and  these  occurrences  give  me  all  mj  knowl- 
edge. I  know  nothing  about  the  supernatural: 
the  word  has  no  meaning  to  me ;  but  Nature  is 
real,  and  Nature  is  reasonable ;  and  this  is  all  the 
reality  and  all  the  reasonableness  I  can  know.  I 
find  no  miracles  in  Nature,  but  only  an  invariable 
order,  which  makes  the  thought  of  a  miracle 
absurd,  and  the  occurrence  of  a  miracle  impossi- 
ble. 

Now  this  view,  in  which  the  unreasonable  and 
the  impossible  mean  only  what  is  unnatural, 
deserves  a  close  inspection,  that  we  may  see  its 
exact  quality,  and  to  what  results  it  leads  us.  If 
there  be  nothing  reasonable  but  the  facts  of 
Nature,  then,  of  course,  nothing  can  be  known 
beyond  these  facts ;  and  therefore,  whether  be- 
yond these,  any  thing  be  possible  or  impossible, 
we  have  no  right  to  say.  If  the  only  reason  for 
the  order  of  Nature,  as  we  find  it,  be,  that  we 
actually  do  thus  find  it,  then  we  have  no  right 
to  say  that  it  could  never  be  found  otherwise, 
nor  that  we  ourselves  may  not  find  it  altogether 
different  to-morrow  from  what  we  find  it  to-day. 
That  a  certain  fact  occurs  is,  in  itself,  no  reason 
why  it  should  occur  again ;  and,  if  it  has  oc- 
curred a  thousand  times,  this  alone  gives  not  the 
slightest  reason  for  its  future  repetition.  If  we 
know  nothing  about  the  causes  of  the  fact ;  if,  as 


142  MIRACLES. 

the  positive  philosophy  stoutly  affirms,  we  only 
know  the  flicts  themselves,  —  then  to  affirm  any 
thing  save  what  we  or  competent  witnesses  have 
actually  observed  is  a  most  unwarranted  assump- 
tion, which,  if  it  be  good  natural  science,  is  good- 
for-nothing  logic.  We  have  no  right  to  general- 
ize upon  such  grounds :  all  that  we  may  do  is  to 
hold  to  the  individual  phenomena  as  we  have  ob- 
served them  ;  and,  if  there  are  no  miracles  among 
these,  we  can  say  so ;  but  to  deny  that  miracles 
are  found  elsewhere  with  other  phenomena  is  as 
idle  as  for  the  blind  man  to  deny  the  existence 
of  colors  which  he  never  saw,  or  the  deaf  man 
the  harmony  which  he  cannot  hear.  To  talk 
about  universal  laws,  and  an  order  of  Nature 
which  requires  this  and  requires  that,  is  to  re- 
nounce the  prime  postulate  of  the  positive 
school ;  and  thus  these  natural  philosophers,  who 
enter  so  confidently  upon  their  task  of  mowing 
down  and  clearing  up  the  theological  thistle-field, 
dexterously  contrive  to  cut  oif  their  own  legs  with 
the  first  movement  of  their  scythe. 

The  fallacy  of  the  objection  might  be  illus- 
trated, if  we  could  suppose  an  observer  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  force  of  gravity  before  there 
is  any  light  or  heat  for  him  to  know.  Such  an 
observer  might  become  very  conversant  with 
Nature  as  then  existing:  he  might  go  through 


MIEACLES.  14S 

the  universe,  and  find  one  unvarying  order  bind- 
ing all  things  to  their  centre ;  but  he  might  not, 
therefore,  say  that  any  change  of  this  order  is 
impossible.  The  introduction  of  light  is  such  a 
change.  Light  is  the  antithesis,  the  direct  op- 
posite, of  gravity ;  but  when  the  Spirit  of  God 
brooded  over  the  waters,  and  God  said,  "Let 
there  be  light,"  there  was  light. 

If  we  generalize  at  all  about  Nature,  and  de- 
duce any  thing  further  than  the  facts  which  have 
been  actually  observed,  it  is  because  we  recog- 
nize that  there  is  something  reasonable  beneath 
the  facts,  which  also  reaches  beyond  them,  and 
which,  instead  of  being  made  by  the  facts,  has 
itself  determined  how  they  shall  be  made.  The 
objector  to  miracles  begins  his  objection  by  deny- 
ing that  there  is  any  such  reasonableness :  but  he 
is  obliged  to  affirm  it  before  he  gets  through; 
and  thus  his  objection  rests  upon  two  grounds 
which  flatly  contradict  each  other.  In  other 
words,  he  denies  a  miracle  because  it  is  different 
from  Nature;  but  he  can  only  maintain  that 
nothing  different  from  Nature  can  be  by  affirm- 
ing a  principle  which  is  itself  different  from  Na- 
ture. The  objector  is  attempting  to  ride  two 
horses,  which  are  proceeding  in  opposite  direc- 
tions, at  the  same  time,  —  a  feat  of  gymnastics 
not  easy,  certainly,  for  the  performer,  however 


144  MIRACLES. 

amazing  to  the  lookers-on.  His  argument  is 
the  old  fallacy  of  the  undistributed  middle  in 
the  syllogism.  A  principle  which  can  form  the 
basis  of  a  universal  affirmation,  and  by  which 
alone  one  is  justified  in  affirming  what  is  possible 
and  what  impossible,  is  not  only  beyond  and 
above  Nature,  and  must  control  Nature,  but  is 
recognized  as  such  even  by  him  who  denies  the 
supernatural ;  or  else  his  denial  has  no  more 
meaning,  even  to  himself,  than  the  chatter  of  a 
parrot  or  a  monkey.  ''  We  must  philosophize," 
said  Aristotle ;  "  and  if  one  says  we  must  not 
philosophize,  still,  in  saying  thus,  he  doth  phil- 
osophize, and  must  do  so."  We  must  have  the 
supernatural ;  and  it  is  alike  the  mystery  and 
majesty  of  the  human  soul  that  we  cannot  deny 
the  supernatural  except  in  terms  which  abso- 
lutely imply  and  affirm  it. 

We  take  our  stand,  therefore,  on  this  position, 
and  declare  —  what  the  very  denial  of  it  implies 
—  that  the  reasonable  is  supernatural ;  and,  on 
this  ground,  the  objection  to  miracles  we  are 
now  considering  instantly  disappears.  It  does 
not  profess  to  have  any  force  except  as  it  denies 
the  supernatural ;  and,  if  this  denial  fail,  the  ob- 
jection fails  at  once.  If  there  be  a  reasonable- 
ness which  is  supernatural,  then  there  must  be  a 
supernatural  Reason  who  has  made  Nature,  and 


MIRACLES.  145 

who  is  not  only  its  Author,  but  its  Finisher  as 
well,  beginning  it  and  consummating  it  out  of 
his  own  fulness,  and  for  his  own  glory.  Could 
he  make  it  ?  and  can  he  not  control  it  ?  And  if 
it  be  the  sublime  truth  that  God  hath  "created 
all  things  by  Jesus  Christ,  to  the  intent  that  now 
unto  the  principalities  and  powers  in  heavenly 
places  might  be  known  by  the  Church  the  mani- 
fold wisdom  of  God,  according  to  the  eternal 
purpose  which  he  proposed  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord,"  then,  what  is  to  hinder  such  adjustments 
and  interferences  with  the  order  of  Nature  as  he 
may  see  fit  to  introduce  for  the  full  disclosure 
and  accomplishment  of  the  wondrous  plan? 

"To  many  minds,"  said  Plato,  "there  must 
come  a  moral  improvement  before  they  can  re- 
ceive any  intellectual  enlightenment ;  "  and  to 
the  minds  immersed  in  Nature,  and  who  boast  of 
their  inability  to  look  beyond  it,  how  much  need 
there  is  of  a  spiritual  insight  and  quickening !  A 
man's  intellect  which  has  shut  out  the  light  of  the 
supernatural  is  like  a  man's  senses  which  have 
shut  out  the  light  of  day.  In  either  case,  he  walks 
in  darkness.  He  speculates,  perhaps;  he  inquires 
about  the  meaning  of  thiugs;  he  explores  Na- 
ture ;  he  gives  us  his  sciences,  which  he  calls  the 
only  positive  truth :  but  he  is  all  the  while  like 
a  blind  man,  who  feels  over  with  his  fingers  the 

13 


146  MIRACLES. 

form  of  a  statue,  or  the  face  of  a  man,  in  order 
to  discover  thus  the  beauty  and  the  living  soul. 
Oh  for  the  light !  Oh  for  the  opened  eye !  What 
a  difference  would  they  work  at  once  in  all  his 
inquiries  and  their  results !  If  the  blind  man 
could  only  see,  how  insignificant  would  all  his 
discoveries  by  his  fingers  seem !  And,  if  the  in- 
tellect which  seeks  to  shut  out  the  supernatural 
could  only  be  illumined  by  its  light,  how  mean- 
ingless and  dead  would  be  all  its  movements 
separate  fi'om  this ! 

To  a  soul  which  has  actually  known  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  Saviour  of  sinners,  and  found  him 
its  light  and  hope  of  glory,  and  opened  its  eye 
to  the  lofty  view  which  he  reveals  of  man,  of 
Nature,  and  of  God,  how  meagre  and  unsatisfying 
seem  all  speculations  which  he  has  not  illumined 
and  inspired ! 

''  The  entrance  of  Thy  words  giveth  light-; 
IT  giveth  understanding  unto  the  simple.     My 

LIPS  SHALL  UTTER  PRAISE  WHEN  ThOU  HAST  TAUGHT 

ME  Thy  STATUTES.  The  law  or  the  Lord  is  per- 
fect,   CONVERTING    THE    SOUL ;    THE    TESTIMONY  OF 

THE  Lord  is  sure,  making  wise  the  simple  ;  the 

STATUTES  OF  THE  LORD  ARE  RIGHT,  REJOICING  THE 
HEART  ;  THE  COMMANDMENT  OF  THE  LORD  IS  PURE, 
ENLIGHTENING  THE  EYES." 


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